Anti-Barney humor

Anti-Barney humor is a form of humor that targets the children's television program Barney & Friends. The perception that the show is saccharine or insincere has made the program a target for parody by older children and adolescents all over America and elsewhere, as well as many adults, and a few famous entertainment personalities.

An early instance of Anti-Barney humor involved a fictional "jihad" against Barney, originating from the early 1990s. Today, it is maintained in the form of a Role-playing game.

History of Anti-Barney humor

Children were among the first groups to practice anti-Barney humor. Eventually, adults contributed to anti-Barney humor including some parents and a few famous entertainment personalities.

Almost immediately after the show first aired in 1992, while it mesmerized and fascinated younger children and infants, it was despised by older children. It became a taboo show for older people to watch. While the adults remained quiet (for the time being), the kids went right down to work with vicious parody.

Kids wrote songs about Barney being killed which are still even now, a decade and a half later, elementary school mainstream. Some of the more popular songs that have spread all over the country include "Barney Got Shot By G-I Joe", and "Joy to the World, Barney's Dead". Many others were written as well that either did not make it past their originating elementary school or have faded.

With children writing these songs and many disappointed parents having to see them at the principal's office, people thought this was only a passing fad, but little did they know that they would help build an extensive catalogue of anti-Barney humor.

Anti-Barney Songs

The Night Barney Went Crazy

to the tune of "The Night Santa Went Crazy," by Weird Al Yankovic, as heard on his album Bad Hair Day

Down on the playground, all the kids were having fun.

There was singing and dancing in the bright summer sun.

Then that doll came to life, scared his friends half to death

With a shotgun in each hand, and cheap whiskey on his breath.

From his tail to his paws, he was covered with ammo

Like a big bad green-and-purple reptilian Rambo.

And he grinned stupidly, with fire in his eyes,

“It’s a tremendous day! Now you’re all gonna die!”

The night Barney went crazy, the night Ol’ Barn went insane

Realized he’d been getting the raw deal; something finally must have snapped in his brain.

Well Sesame Street’s gone now, he decided to nuke it.

He sank Captain Feather-sword’s pirate ship with a bazooka.

Then he tied up the Wiggles, held their dancers all hostage,

And he chain-gunned poor BJ into dinosaur sausage.

Then he carved up Big Bird like a Thanksgiving turkey,

And he blew Dorothy into green dinosaur-jerky.

Then he whipped out a flamethrower, and barbecued Grover;

Also Wags and Henry; for them, it’s all over.

The night Barney went crazy, the night that dino went nuts

Now you can hardly walk around the schoolyard, without a land mine blasting out your guts.

There’s the USMC and the FBI,

There’s a van from the 6 o’clock News, and SWAT choppers circling round in the sky.

And the bullets are flying, the body count’s rising, and everyone’s dying to know:

"Oh Barney, why?

"My, my, my, my, my, my

"You used to be such a loveable guy." (“Super-de-duper!”)

Yes, thank heavens, now Barney’s doing time…In a federal prison, for his infamous crime.

Hey, listen kids…Now, don’t you cry such big tears; He’ll be out with good behavior in 7 million years.

But now Ernie’s in therapy, and Bert is still nervous,

Baby Bop got a job working for the postal service.

And Oscar the Grouch is on the phone every night

With his agent, negotiating the movie rights.

They’re talking about…

The night Barney went crazy, the night that dinosaur flipped

Broke his back for some hugs and kisses; seems to me like he was tired of getting gypped.

Yes, that was…

The night Barney went crazy, the night Ol’ Barn went insane

Realized he’d been getting the raw deal; something finally must have snapped in his brain.

O-ho,

Something finally must have snapped in his brain.

I tell ya,

Something finally must have snapped…in his brain.

I Hate You

(to the tune of "This Old Man" A.K.A. the Barney theme "I Love You")

I hate you, you hate me

But let's chase Barney up a tree

With a four-ten shotgun shot him in the head

Now we know that Barney's dead!

I hate you, you hate me

let's tie Barney to a tree

With a great big punch, Barney's hit the floor

No more stupid dinosaur!

I hate you, you hate me,

But let's get together and kill Barney.

With a one punch, two punch, three punch, four

No more purple dinosaur!

I hate you, you hate me,

We chased Barney up a tree.

With a knife in his back,

And a bullet in his head.

Aren't you glad that Barney's dead!

I hate you, you hate me

But let's go out and kill Barney

With a shotgun blast well Barney's on the floor

No more Purple Dinosaur

I hate you, you hate me,

But let's get together and kill Barney,

With a great big punch,

And Barney's on the floor,

No more purple dinosaur!

I hate you, you hate me,

But let's all go and kill Barney

With a nine millimeter and an arrow in his head,

Aren't you glad that Barney's dead?

I hate you, you hate me,

Barney didn't have his leagacy

Now he's lying dead on the floor

No more Purple Dinosaur!

I hate you, you hate me

Barney's such a stupidie

So I kicked his butt and shocked him in the head

Sorry kids, but Barney's dead!

I hate you, you hate me

Barney's master of stupidity

So I stuck his butt in gasoline

Lit a match and watched him scream

I hate you, you hate me

Let's get together and kill barney

with a great big punch

and barney's on the floor

no more purple dinosaur!

I hate you,

You hate me,

Let's gang up and jump Barney,

With a bomb up the butt we took him down town,

Now that 'tard is six feet down!

I hate you,

You hate me,

Let's team up and kill Barney,

With a knife on his back,

And a gun to his head,

Pull the trigger Barney's dead!

I hate you,

You hate me,

Let's get together and kill Barney,

With a great big gun,

And a bullet through his head,

Won't you say that Barney's dead!

I hate you, you hate me,

I caught a Typhlosion who killed Barney

with a fire blast, barney's hit the floor

No more stupid dinosaur!

I hate you, you hate me,

Let's go out and kill Barney,

With a big great knife, and stab him in the head,

Oh my goodness Barney's dead!

I hate you, you hate me

Let's hang barney by a tree

with a 2 by 4 knock him to the floor

that will be the end of the puple dinosour

I hate you, you hate me

Lets get up and kill Barney

With a knife in his back

And we'll hang him from a tree

Won't you come and help me?

Joy to the World Barney's Dead

(to the tune of "Joy to the World")

Joy to the world ' Barney's dead

We barbecued his head!

What happened to his body

We flushed it down the potty

Round, and round, and round it goes

Round and Round it goes

Around around around it goes!

Barney's Dead

(to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey")

On top of spaghetti

All covered in blood

I shocked up ol' Barney

With a Pikachu at '41

He fell off the mountain

And into the sea

The poor little sharkies

Had Chef Boyardee

I went to his funeral

Some people threw flowers

I threw a grenade

And hit Mrs. Bauers

I went to his casket

To see if he's dead

I threw an atom bomb

And blew off his head

Barney's Dead (San Frenando Valley Version)

(to the tune of "On Top of Old Smokey")

On top of Mount Rushmore,

all covered with blood,

there lay poor barney,

shot in the butt.

I went to his funeral.

I went to his grave.

All the babies threw flowers.

I threw a grenade.

I looked in his coffin.

He wasn't quite dead,

so I grabbed a bazooka

and blew off his head!

He went up to heaven.

They didn't accept him.

So he went way down

All the way down to hell

Row Row Row Your Boat

Row row row your boat

gently down the stream

push barney overboard

and listen to him scream.

5 days later

he rose from the dead

took a bazooka

and shot him in the head!

Barney Got Shot by a G.I. Joe

(not a song, but a spoken rhyme)

Tic Tac Toe,

Three in a row.

Barney got shot by a G.I. Joe.

Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,

Whoop, Barney's dead!

Whoop, Barney's dead!

Parodies of Barney in popular media

• Arnie the Dinosaur from Nine Months.
• Baloney the Dinosaur from Animaniacs
• Barfy (sock puppet) from Pepper Ann
• Barnaby from The Mask: The Animated Series
• Björne from the Illuminati: The New World Order collectible card game
• Blarney the Sea Serpent from The Powerpuff Girls
• Blarney the Rinosaur from an episode of Focus on the Family's radio drama, Adventures in Odyssey. The portrayal was not violent or profane, but this sketch made the Barney show seem incredibly dumb as the parodied character sang "I Hug You" in an uncaring and monotone voice.
• Boney from Weinerville
• Bonky from Recess
• Boomer the Purple Dragon from Captain Underpants
• Brenda the Rhinoceros from the book Sweet Valley Kids (spinoff of the series Sweet Valley High) - the twins featured in that series were stuck in a department store and having to fight off a burglar; part of their Home Alone-style plan was to annoy him into submission with a talking doll of annoying children's show character "Brenda the Rhinoceros," prompting the man to scream, "I hate that stupid pink rhino!"
• Dougie the Whale from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• Georgie the Hippo and Blarney (a puppet) from Dinosaurs
• Goober the Gopher from Rugrats
• Humphrey the Hippo from The Critic
• Infamous Mascot Spoof that The San Diego Chicken beat up in a half-time show (see Barney vs San Diego Chicken)
• Lester the Lizzard from Hangin' with Mr. Cooper
• Mary Moo Cow from Arthur
• Mooby the Golden Calf from the View Askewniverse.
• Pete the Polar Bear and Unknown Blue Dinosaur(from the deleted video on the Channel Chasers DVD) from The Fairly OddParents
• The Piper from Special Unit 2.
• Sidney the Pink Dinosaur from Garfield and Friends
• Smarmy the Dinosaur from Johnny Bravo
• Smoochy the Rhino from Death to Smoochy
• Thingy from The Proud Family
• Unknown purple creature From Sonic X
• Unnamed green dinosaur from Beavis & Butt-Head

The Barney Bunch

File:Barneybunchlogo.JPG

The Barney Bunch logo, based on the Newgrounds Tank.

The Barney Bunch are a group who formed on August 25, 2005 on the website Newgrounds who seem to endlessly submit movies to the site and other places such as YTMND and Image Shack. They mostly parody kids show characters such as Barney, BJ, Baby Bop, Rugrats (especially Drew Pickles), The Wiggles, Elmo, Blues Clues characters (Steve, Blue, etc.), Krypto the Superdog, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and rarely, they even make fun of Wade Fulp despite submitting some of their flashes on Newgrounds. The Barney Bunch depicts them all as homosexuals. They also have created their own Barnies, such as Soviet Barney (seen on picture to the right) and GheyCookie Barney who is the friendliest cookie in the ghey cookie jar in the Barney Bunch universe. Some of the flashes also feature strong emphasis on coprophilia or some other emphasis on feces, masturbation, and semen. These flashes have amused some users, as the Barney Bunch has developed a cult following (many of which end up joining themselves) but it annoys many others, mainly due to the gross animation content and the strong usage of Speakonia (the program that "ock" groups commonly use for their voices) for the character's voices. The Barney Bunch's leader (MrBlue) decided to see what it's like being a racist KKK member. Thus making everybody in the group hate him. This happened in late August. Plus, the Barney Bunch's old senior member ItchyBarney, went back to the group due to MrBlue's old behavior. The members in the Barney Bunch did not like this too. If you see their forums, you'll see topics like "Itchy is deleted, lets party guys!".

Antichrist Joke

Many individuals have been associated with the Number of the Beast (666) using a variety of schemes to transform their names or mottoes into the infamous number. One of the most widely-distributed works of Anti-Barney humour provides a 666 calculation for the character of Barney as follows:

1. Barney is well-described with the following phrase:

CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR

2. The old Latin alphabet used the letter 'V' in place of 'U', therefore the above phrase is modified to:

CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR

3. Letters that do not represent Roman numerals are removed:

CV-- -V--L- DI----V-

4. Add up the Roman numerals of the remaining letters:

C + V + V + L + D + I + V

100 + 5 + 5 + 50 + 500 + 1 + 5 = 666, which is the Number of the Beast.

5. Therefore, Barney is considered Satan.

A summary of the Antichrist calculation was included in the Barney FAQ v1.2 (posted on Usenet's alt.tv.barney newsgroup 1 December 1993). Since then, it has become one of the most widely-distributed instances of Barney humour. It had also been one time made into a flash on Newgrounds, but was deleted by Wade Fulp who had confused it for a Barney Bunch flash. [1]

Computer games

Anti-Barney humor emerged from the modability of early 90's computer games, such as the popular first person shooter, Doom. Numerous "mods" circulated the Internet and third party mod collections would replace specific monsters. Other similar mods were released, replacing one or more monsters with Barney, often with new sounds as well. One such of these mods is Barneystein 3D, a spoof of Wolfenstein 3D, where, instead of killing Nazis, the player has to kill Barney's minions Beavis and Butt-head and finally kill Barney himself.

There also was a computer game for Mac called Barney Carnage.

Legal challenges

Lyons Partnership, which owns the intellectual property rights to Barney & Friends, took the view that Barney spoofs were instances of trademark and copyright infringement against the Barney character. Lyons' lawyers subsequently demanded that the owners of Anti-Barney humour websites remove their material from the Internet. Some site owners withdrew their Barney-related materials after such threats while others resisted. However, American law has established parody as a fair use defense against such infringement claims.

Barney vs San Diego Chicken

In 1994, comedy sketches of The San Diego Chicken during professional sporting events began to include scenes of the Chicken beating up a purple dinosaur character. Lyons Partnership began sending letters to Ted Giannoulas, who portrays the Chicken, demanding that he stop the alleged violation of Lyons' rights on the Barney character.

These threats did not stop the mock battles between Chicken and Barney. On 8 October 1997, Lyons filed lawsuit in Fort Worth, Texas federal district court against Giannoulas, claiming copyright and trademark infringement and further claiming that such performances would confuse children. This court ruled against Lyons on 29 July 1998, declaring the sketches to be a parody that did not infringe on the rights of the Barney character.

Lyons appealed this ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but again lost their case to Giannoulas on 7 July 1998.

Barney vs EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) hosted online archives from the Computer Underground Digest that contained Barney parody material. In 2001, Gibney, Anthony & Flaherty, LLP who were the lawyers for Lyons Partnership, issued a threat letter to EFF claiming infringement of the Barney character. EFF strongly defended itself against these claims citing the established defence of parody, backed by United States First Amendment protections.

Barney vs CyberCheeze

Around 2001, the comedy website CyberCheeze posted a work entitled "150 Ways to Kill the Purple Dinosaur". In response, a lawyer's letter on behalf of Barney's rights owners threatened legal action. CyberCheeze replied to this with a substantial dose of satire.

Miscellaneous

Since 1995, when the website newgrounds.com was established, several fan-made cartoons demeaning Barney have appeared, some of them depicting Barney as a drug addict or a terrorist. One of the most popular includes "Barney Busdriver", which depicts Barney as a drug addict/alcoholic/sadist who is driving an elementary school bus. Another animation portrays Barney as a friend of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and depicts him sexually assaulting a young girl.

Many cartoons targeted at older children have made fun of Barney directly or not. Most cartoons do not mention Barney directly. Instead they use a parody and depict it as being mean. Some examples of shows that have done this include Dinosaurs, Rugrats, and Animaniacs.

The science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research published in its January/February 1995 issue an article called The Taxonomy of Barney, including X-rays of his skeleton. It is freely available on the magazine's website.

See also

• Barney & Friends

External links

Here are some examples of Anti-Barney Humor from the Internet:

• The Canonical List of Ways to Kill Barney WARNING: Graphic Content
• Evil Barney: Bus Driver, one of the Flashes mentioned above.
• Barney's Crack Problem, based on a Z100 crank call.
• The Taxonomy of Barney article, at the Annals of Improbable Research website.
• Barney Shakur Video Barney rapping to the 2pac classic "Hit Em' Up"
• Most Wanted: Barney Barney Depicted As Terrorist
• When Barney Goes Bad Barney Depicted A psychopath
• Barney the Molester A crudely animated flash featuring Barney as a pedophile.
• Barney Vibe A flash comic-cartoon that shows a female bounty hunter throw a vibrator into Barney's head, causing it to explode.
• The Barney kazaa virus V2 Features Barney as a downloadable computer virus. Also features Homer Simpson.
• The Barney Bunch Forum WARNING: Adult Content. Must be 18 or older to enter.
• Killbarney.TK The largest collection of anti-Barney humor on the Internet.
• The Jihad to Destroy Barney

• Doctor Who Meets Barney