How did Barney become a hated character on TV? Doc shows purple dinosaur’s fall

Barney is the children’s sweetheart. Or at least he used to be.

Now, a documentary will unpack where it all went wrong for Nineties TV dinosaur Barney.

Created by Sheryl Leach in 1988, because she wanted better educational content that would both amuse and educate her child, the series features main character Barney, a purple Tyrannosaurus Rex who sings and dances all the while getting across educational messages.

The series ran until 2010 and aired in the US, Canada, Mexico and Latin America, France, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Spain, the UK and Japan.

But when did Barney’s reputation take a turn for the worse? A new documentary hopes to reveal all. Here is everything you need to know.

I Love You, You Hate Me is a two-part docu-series, exploring the rise and fall of Barney. It is directed by Tommy Avallone, and speaks to the people who contributed to Barney & Friends as well as leaders of hate groups and pop culture commentators to get to the bottom of what happened.

You can expect to hear some weird facts about the show, such as

“I figured, 'After 10 years, I've done Barney, I've always wanted to move to Los Angeles to do other acting,'” says David Joyner, who played the dinosaur on the series from 1991 to 2001.

“I help goddesses reconnect with their sexual energy on a spiritual level," explains the actor. He was studying "white lotus" tantra in 1990 when he got cast as Barney. He was asked to sign a document promising he would not teach or speak about tantra while employed on the series.

In 1993, three boys (aged 10, 11, and 12) attacked a man dressed up as Barney at a Texas shopping mall. And that’s not all. Throughout the years, a man was arrested for assaulting Barney, another man started an anti-Barney newsletter, and a group of college students who organised events focused on destroying Barney products.

On what he hopes audiences will take away from the documentary, producer Joel Chiodi told Salon: “First of all, I like to call it chocolate-covered spinach. It's super entertaining. This time that we live in, to have a little bit of lightness and fun, let's take it right. But I hope that we can learn something too. And there's so many lessons I don't want to spoil people's sense of discovery and what that might be.”

I Love You, You Hate Me is streaming now in the US on Peacock but a UK release is yet to be announced.