Barney, the goofy purple dinosaur who served as a mascot of children’s TV in the ’90s and early 2000s, is getting his very own documentary from Peacock, but it’s probably not what you think. Instead of looking back on the positive influence of Barney’s message of kindness, I Love You, You Hate Me will explore the dark response to Barney & Friends, which sparked years of backlash and nasty rumors from an unforgiving public.
In the first trailer for I Love You, You Hate Me, subjects recall how Barney & Friends “just exploded nationwide” after its premiere on PBS in 1992. The series, described by one interviewee as “a cultural phenomenon,” later ended in 2010, but was a mainstay in children’s programming for over a decade.
Bill Nye pops up in the trailer to ask, “What color is happier than purple?” then promptly answer, “No color!” while Bob West, the voice of Barney, explains, “Barney stands for inclusion, acceptance.”
Although another subject in the trailer says Barney & Friends creator Sheryl Leach aimed to encourage viewers to “love everyone,” the message didn’t exactly universally resonate. As Al Roker explains, “As [Leach’s] beloved character was headed into the stratosphere, people couldn’t accept that this was just a show. And so, let the bashing begin.”
Twisted rumors began to swirl around the show and the people who helped create it, including the suggestion that Barney was hiding drugs in the tail of his costume. West, who voiced the big purple dinosaur, reveals in the trailer that his life was on the line: “They were going to come and find me, and they were going to kill me.”
Peacock describes I Love You, You Hate Me as “a limited doc series chronicling the rise and fall of Barney the Dinosaur’s furious backlash — and what it says about the human need to hate. From Barney-bashing to frat parties to homicidal video games, something in American society broke into a million pieces, and it’s never been put together again… or is this just who we were all along?”
I Love You, You Hate Me premieres Oct. 12 on Peacock. Watch the full trailer in the video above.
