#Barney actor cocaine series

We were in the studio so often, and we really didn’t see a lot of the reaction to the show. What did it feel like to be at the center of such a big hit? The show was ubiquitous when I was growing up in the ‘90s. “Barney & Friends” was a genuine pop culture phenomenon.

David Voss, who was shorter than me, fit the costume while I got the voice. Because of a fluke, they had started to build the costume before casting the voice. My agent recommended me to Dennis DeShazer, who was one of the producers of “Barney & Friends.” I auditioned with a lot of other folks. Hit Entertainment / Everett Collectionīob West, a veteran performer who provided the voice for Barney from 1992 to 2000, recalls the production of “Barney & Friends” as a blissful experience that was sometimes shadowed by darker intrusions from the wider world, like a string of death threats he says he received via email. “Parents admit to a cordial dislike of the saccharine saurian, and no self-respecting second-grader will admit to liking Barney.” Barney on 'Barney And Friends' in 1992. “Barney is on the receiving end of more hostility than just about any other popular cultural icon I can think of,” the University of Chicago academic W.J.T. The internet gave rise to new genres of anti-Barney humor that freely mixed winking irony with seemingly real rage. Urban legends about the character's dark secrets sprung up.

NBA great Charles Barkley beat up Barney in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch. School-age kids added violent lyrics to the “Barney & Friends” theme song. The docuseries explores how, throughout the ‘90s and early 2000s, Barney turned into a cultural punching bag, the subject of disdain from adults and derision from kids desperate to disavow their childish pastimes.

#Barney actor cocaine series

But not everyone considered Barney a friend, a phenomenon at the heart of a new Peacock documentary series called “I Love You, You Hate Me.” (NBC News and Peacock are both owned and operated by NBCUniversal.)