47 Fun Facts About Barney & Friends

Which former teacher created Barney & Friends with her own toddler son in mind?

Sheryl Leach. Stuck in a traffic jam, she was brooding on how few videos could hold her two-year-old's attention, and decided to make one herself.

On Barney & Friends, what does Barney come to life from at the start of an episode?

A plush doll. That idea came first: his creator wanted a toddler's cuddly toy that could come to life and play, before she had settled on what kind of creature it should be.

What kind of dinosaur is Barney?

Tyrannosaurus rex. The most feared of dinosaurs was remade as a six-foot giggler with no fangs, just what one 1992 reviewer called game-show host teeth.

Barney's closing song "I Love You" borrows the tune of which folk song?

This Old Man. An Indiana mother set new words to the old tune in 1982 for a book of 'piggyback songs', was paid with a copy of the book, and years later found Barney singing them on television.

Barney's own theme, "Barney is a Dinosaur", is set to which tune?

Yankee Doodle. The traditional tune was free for anyone to borrow; it was the new words set to the show's other borrowed tune, the closing song, that ended in a royalties dispute.

Baby Bop is what kind of dinosaur?

Triceratops. She arrived before the TV series did, making her debut on stage in the 1991 video Barney in Concert as a two-year-old, and later turned three on screen.

On Barney & Friends, how is BJ related to Baby Bop?

Big brother. He joined in the 1993 season premiere, billed as her precocious but lovable older brother, and usually calls her 'Sissy'.

The orange dinosaur who joined Barney & Friends in 2006 is devoted to what?

Music. The dinosaur is Riff: a riff is a short repeated musical phrase, and he lives up to the name with a theme song called 'I Hear Music Everywhere'.

Barney's body is purple, but what colour is his tummy?

Green. In 1992 the New York Times thought the pudgy green belly and clunky waddle made him an unlikely celebrity, in the very weeks shops were running out of Barney dolls.

What colour is Baby Bop's beloved security blanket?

Yellow. She calls it her blankey and sings 'My Yellow Blankey' in its honour, and in Barney's Great Adventure she brings a whole town parade to a halt to look for it.

Which Middle Eastern country made the first foreign-language production of Barney & Friends?

Israel. Producer Itzhak Kol, whose toddler had fallen for the show in Los Angeles, felt a dubbed version full of American slang wouldn't work, so he remade it in Hebrew with a local cast.

What is Barney's favourite meal?

Peanut butter and jelly. He takes the sandwich with a glass of milk, and the children's café beside his Florida theme-park show duly put PB&J on its menu.

Which NBA star beat up Barney in a Saturday Night Live sketch?

Charles Barkley. Hosting in September 1993, he spoofed his own Nike advert, in which he took on Godzilla one-on-one, by putting Barney in the monster's place, and the studio audience cheered.

Barney first appeared in which direct-to-video series, launched in 1988?

Barney & the Backyard Gang. When the videos became a television series, the word 'gang' was dropped for its negative connotations, which is how Barney & Friends got its name.

Which star of the sitcom The Hogan Family played the mother in the first three Barney videos?

Sandy Duncan. She made the tapes while starring in the NBC comedy, which she had joined after its original lead, Valerie Harper, was fired in a pay dispute.

A public television executive pitched Barney to PBS after renting one of the videos for whom?

His daughter. Larry Rifkin watched the four-year-old dance around the room to the tape in early 1991, rang its Texas makers, and soon had a $2.25 million grant for a series.

The 2024 relaunch Barney's World had its US television premiere on which preschool block?

Cartoonito. Cartoon Network's owner bought the rights and gave its preschool block the purple dinosaur's first new television series in 14 years.

In the 2024 series Barney's World, the dinosaur BJ goes by which new name?

Billy. He returns beside Barney and Baby Bop as an energetic dino who loves action and loud sounds, while Riff is left out of the new line-up altogether.

Which toy company announced the 2023 relaunch of the Barney franchise?

The relaunch was seen as part of Mattel's wider revival trend alongside Monster High and Masters of the Universe.

Which future voice of Penny Proud played Marcella in Barney's Great Adventure?

Kyla Pratt. The film flopped in the spring of 1998, but later that year she was back in cinemas as one of the daughters in Dr. Dolittle.

Which cartoon creator turned down directing Barney's Great Adventure?

Trey Parker. The South Park co-creator says he was offered $1.5 million after producers saw his crude short The Spirit of Christmas and decided anyone so funny with children on screen could make a G-rated film.

In Barney's Great Adventure, what magical object do Barney and the children chase all over town?

An egg. It falls from the sky, changes colour as it gets ready to hatch, and finally produces Twinken, a koala-like 'Dreammaker' who shows people their dreams.

Barney's Texas studio also made which PBS series, starring a Jack Russell terrier?

Wishbone. The dog who daydreamed himself into classic novels won Emmys and a Peabody for the company, which was sold along with Barney to Britain's HIT Entertainment in 2001.

Where do the children stay in Barney's Great Adventure?

Farm. It belongs to the children's grandparents, though the cameras were really rolling outside Montreal, around the Morgan Arboretum.

Barney's owners sued which sports mascot in 1997 for roughing up a Barney lookalike in his act?

The San Diego Chicken. His routine had him flip, slap and tackle a purple dinosaur; the courts called it parody, threw the case out and made Barney's owners pay his legal fees.

Which future pop star played Gianna on Barney & Friends in its seventh and eighth seasons?

Selena Gomez. The schoolgirl from Grand Prairie, Texas, went from Barney's playground to Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place, one of several careers the show launched.

Which pop star played Angela on Barney & Friends?

Demi Lovato. Years later she went back to the show's closing song, headbanging through a heavy metal 'I Love You' with Jimmy Fallon on his late-night show.

In 2003 the BBC reported US interrogators in Iraq playing Barney's 'I Love You' to prisoners alongside which band?

Metallica. The idea was to break prisoners' resistance through lack of sleep and songs they found offensive; one US operative said 45 minutes of the Barney song in training was enough for him.

Barney & Friends was taped throughout its run in the suburbs of which Texas city?

Dallas. Production moved from Allen to Irving and then Carrollton without ever leaving the area, which is why so many of the children in the cast were local.

Scooter McNutty, a puppet on Barney & Friends in seasons four to six, was what kind of animal?

Squirrel. The man working the puppet, Todd Duffey, is better known as Brian, the Chotchkie's waiter in the 1999 comedy Office Space.

In 2002, which magazine put Barney & Friends on its list of the 50 worst shows of all time?

TV Guide. Barney scraped in at number 50, on a list headed by The Jerry Springer Show, although Yale researchers had found that preschoolers given the show with follow-up lessons did better on school-readiness tests.

Barney reruns aired from 2018 to 2020 on which successor to Sprout?

Universal Kids. The preschool channel Sprout was rebranded in 2017 to reach a wider age range, and the renamed network itself went dark in March 2025.

What is the title of the 2022 Peacock documentary about the backlash against Barney?

I Love You, You Hate Me. The two-part series began when its director saw an old 1993 news clip of students at the University of Nebraska beating up a Barney, and wondered where the rage came from.

What happened to the Barney balloon at the 1997 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?

Police stabbed it flat. High winds had driven the balloon into a lamp post and out of control, so officers brought it down with knives and boots, to cheers from some of the children watching.

Barney's Hide & Seek Game, released in 1993, was made for which console?

Sega Genesis. Left alone, the game will play itself to the end, which inspired a tongue-in-cheek speedrunning category called 'Any% No Controller'.

Who wore the Barney costume from 1991 to 2001?

David Joyner. The night before his audition he dreamed that Barney had passed out and that he revived him with mouth-to-mouth, which he took as a cue to breathe life into the part.

Barney's 1991–2001 costume performer later played the title role in which kids' show?

Hip Hop Harry. He swapped the purple dinosaur for a rapping bear, a long way from his first career as a software analyst at Texas Instruments.

Barney's original voice actor also voiced two characters for which restaurant chain?

Chuck E. Cheese. From 1986 he was the voice of Jasper T. Jowls and Pasqually in its in-store shows, a job he kept up through most of his years as the purple dinosaur.

The creator of Barney & Friends named the dinosaur BJ after which of her relatives?

Her father. He was known as B.J., and the sporty dinosaur who joined the cast in 1993 was given his initials; her small son was the child the whole show had been made for.

Who bankrolled the first Barney videos in 1988?

The creator's father-in-law. He owned the educational publisher where she worked in marketing, backed her idea when it was only a plan, and later built the studio behind the television series.

Which Broadway composer of Hello, Dolly! wrote the title song for Barney's Great Adventure?

Jerry Herman. Bernadette Peters sang his 'Barney, the Song', and the Tony winner's reward was a Golden Raspberry nomination for the year's worst original song.

In 1992, Barney's personal appearances at which kind of venue drew crowds of up to 40,000?

Shopping malls. Parents and toddlers packed each stop in their thousands, in scenes one reporter likened to a rock concert, until his owners, fearing for the children's safety, took him off the mall circuit.

In 2025, Ayo Edebiri was reported to be writing Daniel Kaluuya's Barney film for which studio?

A24. Two years earlier an executive at the company that owns Barney had promised just that kind of film: surreal, aimed at adults, and leaning into the angst of the millennials who grew up with him.

Unlike the original, how is Barney brought to the screen in Barney's World?

Computer animation. The dinosaur once played by a man in a 70-pound suit went digital for his first television series in 14 years.

On Barney & Friends, what colour is the baseball cap BJ wears?

Red. He wears it with matching sneakers, and one episode, 'Hats Off to BJ!', is built around what happens when the cap goes missing.

Which author of Strega Nona appeared as himself in several episodes of Barney & Friends?

Tomie dePaola. On one visit he read out his picture book The Baby Sister, and the real sister it is about walked in to join him.

Barney's World began streaming in October 2024 on which service, four days before its cable debut?

Max. Its parent company had bought the US rights the year before, so the series streamed there first and reached the company's cable channel four days later.