SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Why do we revisit things we loved as kids, and what is the lasting power of this media? A new seven-part podcast looks for answers in a great big, purple dinosaur. And if you are of a certain age, you know him, and you know that he loves you and you love him, or maybe you do not.
In Generation Barney, member station Connecticut Public explores how Barney the Dinosaur shaped a generation of kids. Here's some of the podcast's first episode in which host Sabrina Herrera guides us through Connecticut Public's own role in the Barney phenomenon.
SABRINA HERRERA, BYLINE: Growing up, Leora Rifkin Edouard didn't watch a lot of television. But on Super Bowl Sunday 1991, she asked her dad if they could go to their local video store in Prospect, Connecticut. Leora doesn't remember too much about that day. To be fair, she was 4 years old at the time. But here's what she does remember. The video store had a little stand where you could buy classic movie snacks like popcorn and candy, and it was packed with rows of VHS tapes. But as Leora look through the shelves, there was one video that caught her eye.
LEORA RIFKIN EDOUARD: I remember it being, like, to the left of me, going to grab that video.
HERRERA: That video was called "A Day At The Beach." It had a red cover, and smack-dab in the center was a blueish purple dinosaur wearing a little sailor's hat and scarf on a boat full of kids.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A DAY AT THE BEACH")
BOB WEST: (As Barney the Dinosaur) Did I hear you say you've never been to the beach? Booawunga (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: (As character) What does that mean?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: (As character) I don't know. I don't speak dinosaur.
HERRERA: When Leora and her dad got home, they popped in the video. Her dad went about his day, but Leora sat there glued to the TV. And when it was done, she asked to watch it again and again and again.
LARRY RIFKIN: And in those days, you really had to help the child rewind the tape. So I had to keep going back in, and then I decided, well, maybe it's worth my time to sit down and take a look at this.
HERRERA: Leora's dad, Larry Rifkin did more than just look at what was onscreen. He looked at his daughter, Leora, who couldn't turn away from it.
RIFKIN EDOUARD: For me, I think it was definitely the music, like, definitely the repetition of the songs, and there's just so music. And I think the fact that I can remember - I mean, not from that exact episode, but I remember, like, you know, the "Peanut Butter And Jelly" song. Like, (singing) peanut, peanut butter and jelly. Peanut, peanut butter.
And, like, just, like, that constant repetition.
HERRERA: Larry wasn't just any parent, though. He happened to be in charge of programming for the state's PBS station, CPTV, or as we call it today, Connecticut Public. Now, Larry was not an expert on children's television, and CPTV was not a major player in public broadcasting. But PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had recently put out a call for more preschool programming. And as a programmer, Larry understood how important it was to listen to your audience. Kids like Leora were Barney's target audience. To make sure he was really onto something, Larry showed the video to some of Leora's friends, kind of like a makeshift focus group for preschoolers. They liked Barney, too, and so did the son of the president of CPTV.
RIFKIN: Up until that time, there was very little for a young child going down to age 3 or 4. They like that slower pace, that linear storyline. They like a character with whom they can relate, who gives them unconditional appreciation for who they are and what they're feeling. And so Barney met a lot of things that we really didn't, as a system, offer yet.
HERRERA: So Larry looked at the video's back cover, found the name Sheryl Leach and gave her a call.
RIFKIN: And lo and behold, I said to her, have you ever considered PBS? And she, in her Southern drawl, said, PBS? Tell me what that is.
HERRERA: Sheryl gave the OK, and so Larry pitched the show for national distribution.
RIFKIN: Barney was a one-off. As I say, Barney was a unicorn. He wasn't a dinosaur.
HERRERA: The very next year, "Barney And The Backyard Gang" hit PBS as "Barney & Friends" and found its way into the homes of millions of kids, including mine.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOGGLEBOX SONG, "BARNEY AND FRIENDS")
HERRERA: There weren't dramatic differences between the home video and PBS versions of Barney. They made little fixes, like changing the name. It was the early '90s. The word gang had a certain connotation then, so you couldn't really have it in the title of a children's series. They also improved the production and lighting, and Barney himself became a bit more soft, cuddly and magenta. Plus, Sheryl and co became even more intentional about the show's educational value. "Barney & Friends" was one of three shows in PBS's new preschool lineup. But this new lineup was technically a competition.
(SOUNDBITE OF MATT NORMAN'S "RACE TO THE FINISH")
HERRERA: The plan was to put one season of the three new series on the PBS airwaves. Based upon performance, one, maybe two, would be greenlit for ongoing production.
RIFKIN: We didn't know much about our competitors. We just knew that it was probably a very aggressive competition because nothing like it had occurred within public television in a very long time.
HERRERA: Larry Rifkin says preschool programming hadn't been seen as commercially viable up until this point. There was this sense that really young kids were not great consumers. Like, they just watched or consumed whatever their older sibling liked. They got hand-me-down clothes, hand-me-down TV shows, too.
RIFKIN: The pacing, the color, the music, the other children - there was no doubt in their mind that this property was built for them, and they wanted to be part of that. And so they demonstrated that this market was not to be forgotten.
HERRERA: When it debuted on PBS on April 6, 1992, "Barney & Friends" was a hit, but Barney was competing against two worthy opponents.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)
HERRERA: In one quarter, "Lamb Chop," and in the other, "Thomas The Tank Engine."
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)
HERRERA: About a month later, PBS broke some bad news. It was moving forward with the other two shows. There wouldn't be a second season of "Barney & Friends."
RIFKIN: I was crestfallen. I was devastated, as you can imagine, because there was a lot of personal reputation on the line.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HERRERA: This is where Barney's story could have ended. But Larry didn't go quietly into the night.
(SOUNDBITE OF RICHARD AITKEN AND ANDREW GANNON'S "CYLINDERS AND BANK VAULTS")
HERRERA: He had a plan to save Barney from extinction that included bending a few rules. First, Larry worked Barney into CPTV's fundraising drives. Technically, you couldn't use a character like Barney to ask viewers for money, so Larry came up with a workaround. He would make the financial ask with Barney in studio spreading messages of love and kindness, you know, his specialty.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Barney the Dinosaur) We're proud of it.
RIFKIN: Do you miss - now, Tasha's not here with us today, and we don't have Lucy with us, and we don't have Derek (ph). I mean, you miss all the kids?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Barney the Dinosaur) Oh, sure. I always miss my friends when I'm away from them. But I know that they're thinking about me, and I'm always thinking about them, so I'm never lonely.
RIFKIN: Absolutely. The number to call right now, while Barney's here...
HERRERA: On a single Saturday morning that June, Larry says CPTV made $50,000.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Barney the Dinosaur) Oh, boy (ph).
HERRERA: Usually, they'd make a tenth or less of that. Second, Larry recorded Barney's in-person appearance at the Hartford Civic Center around the same time and sent it around to public media programmers across the country. Screaming kids packed the venue, and Larry wanted other PBS stations to know that.
(CHEERING)
RIFKIN: It was the closest I came to seeing the young set in their own form of Beatle mania.
HERRERA: Together, the success of the fundraising drive and event showed Barney's power in helping public media's bottom line. Larry says he and his fellow programmers were convinced "Barney & Friends" was a once-in-a-generation kind of show. They were getting phone call after phone call from parents asking about Barney. Plus, the show's numbers were still going strong. So local PBS programmers demanded more of Barney at the PBS annual meeting, and PBS reversed its decision.
(SOUNDBITE OF RICHARD AITKEN AND ANDREW GANNON'S "CYLINDERS AND BANK VAULTS")
HERRERA: Barney would not end up a fossil, and he soon evolved into a cultural phenomenon.
RIFKIN: Children really do have minds of their own, and they do know what meets a particular need in their development. And so they will seek that out. It could be a toy. It could be a friend. It could be an animal, and it could be a television program.
DETROW: That was part of Connecticut Public's new podcast, Generation Barney. You can learn more at ctpublic.org/barney or by looking for Generation Barney on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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