EVIL BARNEY SERIES
EVIL BARNEY TV

Ironically, Dinosaurs’ marketing-friendly catchphrases (“Not the mama!”) and fan appeal of the obnoxious Baby made the show’s deeper subversions possible. It’s a classic example of what the show’s format could let them get away with. “Now it’s about cash!”īut “Georgie Must Die” isn’t just a more fleshed-out critique of the substance-less ’90s kid’s program.

“It was about smiley kids…for the first ten minutes!” Georgie snaps at Earl. And he’s ready to eliminate any disruption of his media saturation. You see, behind the genial giggles of the orange hippo lies a greedy, money-grubbing capitalist (voiced by Ed Asner). The real Georgie comes by to visit Earl in the big house, which is where “Georgie Must Die” takes its most sinister turn. This almost works until the police arrest him for copyright infringement (in his own home!) and haul him to jail. Georgie calls his child audience his “backdoor pals” (eww) and sings a shrill soundalike of “I Love You, You Love Me” where every other word is “special.”Ĭompletely over Georgie’s annoying omnipresence in his life, Earl dons a hand-crafted Georgie costume to see if an in-person visit will mollify Baby. Here, patriarch Earl Sinclair (voiced by Stuart Pankin) gets fed up with Baby Sinclair’s (voiced by Kevin Clash) obsession with Georgie!, a sickly kid’s program with a giggly orange hippo. There’s an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to “ anti-Barney humor” of the era that helped adults process the saccharine emptiness of his appeal.īut perhaps the most cutting rebuke to the purple dinosaur’s felt-clad grip on ’90s American children came from Dinosaurs.

EVIL BARNEY TV

Adults resented Barney’s cloying chuckle, treacly friendship jingles, and the fact that their kids had him on TV all the time. If you weren’t around back then, Barney & Friends was the kind of kids’ show that tots adored and parents hated. It’s a satirical take on another, more popular dino who was making waves at the time: Barney the Purple Dinosaur. One of the most memorable episodes is “Georgie Must Die,” the show’s penultimate story. The more serious commentary is worth exploring but so is the lighter fare. It would handle deeper, darker issues than most shows of its time, putting pop culture and social targets in its crosshairs, including the scourge of drugs and the conventions and tropes of family sitcoms.

EVIL BARNEY SERIES

The series couched its acid-tongued satire in an anthropomorphic and animatronic dinosaur family living the suburban dream. Dinosaurs (1991-1994) was short-lived yet ahead of its time.

Evil barney