I Love You, You Hate Me

I admit, for about 20 years I was a Barney "hater". The toxic discourse around the beloved children's character in the 1990s and 2000s was waiting for me when I grew out of the franchise ... and from there I believed many mistruths that left indelible stains on an otherwise golden legacy of entertaining and educating children worldwide.

I eventually grew out of my misdirected disrespect and I wondered why Barney was such a viscerally hated character. There were no definitive answers ... until this documentary dropped on Peacock.

The documentary does a valiant job entertaining some of the reasons why Barney endured some of the most intense wrath hurled from all corners of society - from toxic masculinity to some of the haters' own self-hatred. Unfortunately, the 60-minute two-episode format doesn't lend itself well to the material. A lot of valuable information is either truncated or left out. Some 45 interviews were conducted for the documentary and key people associated with the franchise had to be cut. With a longer series, some interesting perspectives could have been explored in more intricate detail.

However, there are some gems in the docuseries - lots of never-before-seen behind the scenes footage is a delight to witness for fans and people who are Barney-curious. Some of the cast and crew give a good insight into the production and we get to hear some interesting stories.

All in all, worth a watch, but be prepared to feel some frustration at some questions that are still left unanswered at the conclusion of Part 2.

Upon viewing the first episode , I found my self in tears. Being born in 1999, Barney was the show that I was stuck to as early as I can remember . The guest speakers were a very pleasant surprise and added great composition to the series. I do however wish that the series could have been longer and included more flashback from the series and behind the scenes intel. Also, the series could have touched on the role that early YouTube played into this barney hating phenomenon. This series was created exactly for its targeted audience and succeeded in the raw feelings of nostalgia and childhood!!

Having grown up watching and loving Barney, I was completely unaware of the negative reactions. I was also unaware of the group that hated Barney. Great video with interviews and the cast. Recommend it, highly. I think this is something that should be watched by anyone who knows Barney, no matter how they feel about him. Seeing both sides really opened my eyes and deepened my love for Barney at the same time. I only wish that this had been made sooner. It was interesting (and sad) to see what happened to the family that created Barney. Nonetheless, this is a documentary I'll be watching again quite a few times.

I grew up watching Barney as a kid and even then I was aware that it was corny, cheesy, unrealistic and not representative of my home life at all. In fact that's why I liked it. It was an escape for me and other kids. Although I did resent Barney for giving my parents the idea to force me and my sister to hug and sing the "I love you" song whenever we fought. Honestly though, looking back on that show as an adult, it was just an innocent cheerful children's show. I overheard older kids making fun of it but outside of that I had no idea all this Barney hatred was happening in the world. It's really sad, though at times also pretty funny. I understand the cynicism, but how was Barney any worse than Beavis and Butt-Head, Ren & Stimpy, or Rocko's Modern Life? I would argue those shows were all equally important because they all served their purpose of escapism while teaching compassion, humility, honesty, empathy and comedy. Children don't learn those things as often as they should from their own lives and unfortunately spend far too much time being in front of a screen in the first place. Barney didn't deserve the hate and it's really heartbreaking to hear how it damaged the lives of the creator and people around her. It's hard to imagine the same thing happening with any other character other than the teletubbies. It's still fun to hate on them, right? Hm.

Going into this, I thought it would be just an interesting dive into the origins of Barney and the armies of annoyed grown-ups which resulted. What this truly is is an examination of the hearts of people and how the worst of us find reasons to hate and trample things we don't understand. Adults fostered an unnecessary hatred for a fictional entity when no one ever forced them to turn the channel and watch Barney. I was entering high school when I first heard of Barney so it didn't appeal to me. Even though I found it a bit annoying, I knew I all I had to do was not watch it. I had the same attitude toward Harry Potter. I wasn't militantly against kids reading stories about witchcraft but it just did not appeal to me.

This mini-series highlights the bad attitudes grown people had towards Barney as well as the urban legends that went with them. Barney taught children many important things in life such as love, caring, and unselfishness and this doc reminds us that something so pure can make people look for hidden evil even if it isn't there. The most gripping point of this documentary is when Steven from Blues Clues looks at the camera and asks "Who was your Barney?" Many of us had a Barney growing up whether or not it was Barney himself. I pity those who didn't.