The biggest problem is that Sheryl Leach declined to participate. In short, Childhood Confirmers and Childhood Ruiners.Īvallone’s documentary needs to be both and yet that duality keeps it from doing either thing well. Then there’s That Thing You Loved When You Were a Kid Had an Underbelly That Should Have Been Obvious Even Back Then - docs that cast light into the darkness of half-remembered ephemera like Beanie Babies or Menudo. In that category, I’ve reviewed documentaries on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow in the last five years. On one hand, there’s That Thing You Loved When You Were a Kid Is Still Special and Sacred. I Love You, You Hate Me is trying to occupy space in two of documentary’s most ubiquitous nostalgia-driven genres. At the same time, it generated an aggressive backlash, was targeted for mockery and abuse and spawned urban legends of a so-called Barney Curse that are pretty clearly bunk, though the Leach’s family experienced disproportionate tragedy. Barney & Friends ran 14 seasons and became almost instantly iconic thanks to its diverse cast, catchy songs and aggressively repetitious positive messaging. It will be up to viewers to decide whether the failure to thoroughly explore its biggest contentions makes I Love You, You Hate Me borderline offensive - once you’re paralleling Barney haters with the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, that line is really blurry - or just flawed, on top of a clumsy structure and major sourcing problems, in a documentary that probably won’t inspire either extreme in its title.Īs a reminder, Sheryl Leach came up with the idea for the universally loving (not to be confused with universally loved) Barney back in 1988, and the character became a global sensation when PBS affiliates took the series wide in 1992. I Love You, You Hate Me doesn’t want to be simply a hollow celebration of ’90s nostalgia, which I truly respect, but it doesn’t quite have the intellectual ammunition to make its more ambitious points convincingly. However, the series also dives into the darker side of the story, one with uncomfortable theories, ruined relationships, and acts of extreme violence.It’s a contestable but also provocative point made in contradictory and ultimately under-defended terms, and that means that it’s probably a perfect encapsulation of Tommy Avallone’s documentary. Over the course of the docuseries, it is explained how Sheryl Leach came up with the idea behind the original direct-to-video series and how it went on to become the most popular program of its kind for an extended period of time. I Love You, You Hate Me takes a fairly straightforward approach to the creation, early days, rise, time on top, and downfall of the Barney and Friends TV series. I Love You, You Hate Me Captures The Meteoric Rise Of Barney The Dinosaur And The Show’s Downfall Here are a few things to know about the 2022 TV schedule release. The massive cultural icon that was Barney the Dinosaur is the subject of a new Peacock docuseries titled I Love You, You Hate Me (a play on the show's closing song), one that sets out to tell the story of how a former elementary school teacher took over the world and the price she paid for doing so.
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