I never knew Barney had so much controversy lol...
I hate you, you hate me.
Let's get together and kill Barney.
With a 2x4...
That's all I remember from the version of the song I was familiar with.
I'm too old to have watched this show and too young to have had kids who watched it, at least when it was in its original run. I'm sure they probably made new episodes of it for 20-30 years or more, like Mister Rogers and Sesame Street.
I did babysit my friend's little brother back in the early 90's when I was like 16-18. He's 11-12 years younger than me. He'd watch it, as well as PBS, which is what it aired on. I was always amused to see Mister Rogers and Sesame Street on there, as I actually did grow up with those shows.
I just remember Barney being so cringy. And the production quality of the show was so bad in those early years that sometimes Barney looked like he was different colors in different episodes. He was described as purple, but some episodes he looked purple, pink, maroon, etc.
I remember after 2 years of HEAVY Barney watching (even I started to see the same episodes over and over too many times) he was done with it. He just stopped watching it and Nickelodeon would be on during those times and not PBS. I think he had always watched that, but during the hours I was there it was always PBS. He stopped watching it and never looked back.
The only thing I vividly remember about a Barney episode was when they had some painter on. I guess he was a famous painter. Whoever he was, it was like he was already known about and people were supposed to know who he was. They asked everybody their favorite color and he replied something like ''White! Because you can paint on it!''. But it sounded like the f***in guy was saying ''White! Because you can PEE on it!'' and we kept reciting that over and over. Both a 17 year old me, as well as 6 year old him and his brother who is the same age as me, were convinced he said ''Because you can PEE on it!''. We're laughing our asses off because we think this kids show has some adult on there talking about peeing and how his favorite color is white because you can PEE ON IT! You know, inside of the toilet bowl is white, some people have interpreted the color or water to be white.
Their mom was home one day when it aired (because we had already watched the same episodes at least 5 times by this point because the series was still pretty new) and told us he was saying PAINT and not PEE.
That's all I remember about it. I was really glad when he gave up on it. I was out of school and started working not too long later, so I stopped babysitting him anyway, but I was proud of him that he gave up on Barney when he did, as it was SUPER CRINGE even for a kids show. I didn't feel that way about the other children's shows (Lamb Chop, Mister Rogers, Sesame Street did have its moments though) that were on those times.
I always bring up the ''White is my favorite color because you can PEE ON IT!'' thing to this now 35 year old, but he has absolutely no recollection of it. His brother, who is the same age as me and has an even better memory than I do clearly remembers it though and we always laugh about it. In fact, 3 of our buddies also got in on the joke and I see them all at least annually. One lives right here a few minutes from me and stayed with his family at my house last night cause he lives on the water and he's still my best friend. I'm gonna ask him if he remembers it later, but his memory is worse than all of ours, so he probably won't. I'm sure he'll remember Barney, but that's it.
