As part of Peacock‘s larger foray into the world of documentaries, the streamer unveiled a new two-part docu-series on Barney this week: I Love You, You Hate Me. Despite the cheery, children’s show nature of the subject, the unusual project attempts to chronicle “the rise and fall of Barney the Dinosaur’s furious backlash — and what it says about the human need to hate.” Turns out, Barney was subject to an insane amount of hate back in the day, and not just from parents who had to watch the hit series on an endless loop.
As for why anyone would dredge up something as awful as the Barnie backlash, director Tommy Avallone offered a dark yet fascinating reason for why he was inspired to make the limited series after seeing a messed up video on social media. Via Variety:
“These college kids were beating up Barney,” says Avallone. “Ripping him apart, hitting him with a mallet, and at the end, the newscaster says, ‘That’s the future of our country, right there.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ We are in that future right now.’ There is a higher level of hate going on right now. Then I wondered if I could tell a story about love and hate but told through the story of Barney the Dinosaur.”
With the docuseries now out in the wild, it’s already revealed one wild fact about the beloved children’s series. The guy in the Barney costume? He’s now a tantric sex guru, but as Avallone told Fox News (whose heads somehow didn’t explode), “it’s not as weird as you would think” because, and this is important, “he’s never doing any of this tantric stuff in the Barney suit.” Oh, good.
I Love You, You Hate Me is available for streaming on Peacock.
(Via Variety)