बार्नी एंड फ्रेंड्स

All four of my children watched this show during their preschooler years. I have a two-year-old who watches every day and owns a couple of videos.

This show is about using your imagination. It teaches musical skills. It teaches the alphabet, numbers, memorization, and good behavioral techniques. When the show originally aired it was all imagination. Barney was a stuffed toy owned by a girl named Tina who imagined she was back at school playing with her friends and classroom toys. Now it has evolved to a treehouse in the center of a park and the focus is friendship. Thanks to everything decent this show has to offer, my kids have grown up more intelligent and they are not afraid to show off their knowledge and talents.

Bottom line - my kids are happier because of Barney being a part of their lives. That makes this show TOPS in my book!

Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Postman Pat, Oscar the Grouch, the Happy Giant. What do all of these names have in common. They're wonderful memorable childhood TV characters. Why? Because they're classics. And classics are timeless pieces of entertainment that will stay with you forever. They shape your early years, how you learn, what you learn, and even how you act with others. And you know who isn't in that list? Barney the Dinosaur. And why? BECAUSE HE IS THE MOST ANNOYING CHILDREN'S CHARACTER EVER CREATED BY GOD!

Imagine a purple therapod about 9 feet tall with a voice so high it makes dogs howl at a 5-mile radius. Then add a theme song based on "Yankee Doodle" and voilà! you have Barney. The problem with this character is that he is extremely annoying. And I don't mean annoying as in uncomfortable to stand. I mean mentally grating and painful to see and hear. While Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, and Grover are down to earth characters that are fuzzy and lovable, Barney is more sugary, yippidy, and "in your face". And let's not forget the infamous "I Love You" song played EVERY TIME the show finishes. It's so deliciously bad, it's "download onto your ipod to torture friends" worthy.

1/10

Now, the first thing I should tell the readers - I'm on the autism spectrum so it's okay for me to sometimes watch kids shows when I'm 21 and childless. That will help you refrain from yelling at your device screen that I must be out of my mind (or at least I hope it will). A few years ago my sister's children were watching a recent episode of Barney, and my reaction was like that of many people: "God this is so DUMB." But I fondly remember watching Barney as a child, and even on my eighth birthday there was a miniature Barney toy in/on the cake, and I got a BJ doll that year too:) But I eventually grew up just like everyone does and by the time my sister's tots were around my enjoyment of Barney was years behind me. But a little while ago I found some 1995 episodes on YouTube, and yesterday when I watched one of them, instantly I felt like the 4-year-old I was at that time, a very pleasant nostalgic feeling indeed. I'm going to watch that episode again now. I give this show a 6 out of 10 because the newer episodes don't compare to the ones I watched when I was young...Goodbye now.

Barney haters have way too much time on their hands in order to be able to sit and write a five page hate letter to the "hippie" parents who let their kids watch Barney - If ya don't like Barney...fine but get a life and focus your anger and hate on something a little more challenging than Barney, it's as though you cannot comprehend anymore than your preschooler. Each parent is individual, stop trying to pass your crap onto others. Teahcing your kids to hate and rant about it was never seen on an episode of Barney...you will not be rewarded for your creative ways here. Children are unique and forcing children to abide by your way of thinking is harsh, there will be a lot more than Barney that you will not be able to shelter them from once they grow into teenagers...hope you have a lot of rant left in you!

From the adult perspective, this show would seems really stupid and horrible. But for my brother and I as toddlers watching the show, I loved it. My brother and I learned things about sharing, different cultures, mixing colors, etc. At the time, I thought it was a great show. You all have to remember, IT IS A KIDS SHOW. It is not meant to make tons of sense in a real-world setting or be a wonderful, inspiring show (actually, to a toddler, it is a wonderful and inspiring show). It's just a nice, entertaining program for very young children. Nothing more, nothing less. But then again, are any childrens shows anything more than that? No. Barney and Friends has given me some really fond childhood memories of just enjoying things for what they were, not analyzing them. Save the horrors of that for when children are older. Anyway, If you really want some bad childrens television, watch teletubbies. You'll probably become dumber.