I love you, you love me, Barney’s back on your TV.
A reboot of “Barney,” the famous 1990s children’s TV franchise featuring the titular purple dinosaur, is officially in the works, Mattel announced Monday. Set for an unnamed date in 2024, the relaunch will see Barney getting a new look as an animated series produced by Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana and Mattel Television.
Along with the new series, Mattel plans to roll out films and YouTube videos starring Barney in addition to a line of kids’ merchandise. The company is also planning a line of adult apparel and accessories featuring the original Barney design.
“Barney’s message of love and kindness has stood the test of time,” said Josh Silverman, Chief Franchise Officer and Global Head of Consumer Products at Mattel. “We will tap into the nostalgia of the generations who grew up with Barney, now parents themselves, and introduce the iconic purple dinosaur to a new generation of kids and families around the world across content, products, and experiences.”
“In creating the new series, it was important to us that we properly reflect the world that kids today live in so that the series can deliver meaningful lessons about navigating it,” said Fred Soulie, SVP and General Manager of Mattel Television. “With our modern take on Barney, we hope to inspire the next generation to listen, care, and dream big. We think that parents, many of whom will fondly remember the original Barney from their own childhoods, will love the show, too.”
Premiering on PBS in 1992, “Barney & Friends” was a live-action children’s series featuring Barney as a plush purple dinosaur come to life to play with kids alongside his friends Baby Bop and BJ. The show became an overnight sensation and was renewed by PBS after a nationwide campaign by its affiliate networks, the show’s producers and millions of parents whose preschool kids were enraptured by the dinosaurs and their friends.
“Barney & Friends” would continue shooting until 2010 with reruns still airing on the Universal Kids network. At its peak in the ’90s, the show stood alongside the likes of “Sesame Street” and “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” as one of the most popular shows for preschoolers.
But unlike those shows, “Barney” never got crossover appeal with adults, partly by design as the show focused exclusively on toddlers and preschoolers without the celebrity cameos or more complicated topic discussions that made “Sesame Street” and “Mister Rogers” attractive to older kids and adults.
By the early 2000s, “Barney” had become the target of intense mockery both in pop culture at large and even on other kids shows like “Animaniacs.” The rapid rise and caustic backlash that the character faced became the subject of a three-part docuseries, “I Love You, You Hate Me,” which premiered on Peacock this past October and speaks with former cast and crew members on the show about how that backlash affected them.
“Barney” will become Mattel’s latest revival of a decades-old franchise as the company looks to introduce some of its most famous IP to a new generation. In 2021, Mattel co-produced a new animated “Masters of the Universe” series for Netflix starring Chris Wood, Mark Hamill, Liam Cunningham, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lena Headey with Kevin Smith as showrunner. This past October, Mattel also relaunched its 2010 “Monster High” franchise with a new animated series that premiered on Nickelodeon.
Mattel is also co-producing a feature film adaptation of its most famous toy, “Barbie.” Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and written an d will be released by Warner Bros. on July 21.
