The fall from grace of Barney the dinosaur was likely accelerated by the timing of the internet.
That is according to Tommy Avallone, director of new documentary ‘I Love You, You Hate Me’.
'Barney' was once the biggest children's TV show in the world but began to generate hatred over time.
The documentary looks at this fall from grace, which even included death threats.
Picture: SuppliedTommy Avallone told Moncrieff it could have been a victim of its time.
"Barney came out on PBS in 1992, so it was very, very early internet - it was before AOL and all the big things that way.
"One of the first times the word 'jihad' was ever used on the internet was the 'Jihad destroy Barney' role-playing game.
"It was one of these early websites; so it was kind of the start of this early everyone joining the internet and collectively hating something".
'Beating up Barney'
He said the documentary looks at "why do we hate the things we hate, what does that say about us?"
He said the people making the show had some idea what was going on.
"Bob West - the voice of Barney - was a very early adopter of the internet, so he would tell them from time to time.
"Once it started getting bad, when the San Diageo chicken was beating up Barney at baseballs games, the Barney team started suing some of the people.
"Thye sued a couple of people who were using knock-off Barney suits, that makes sense, and they won some of those.
"They tried to sue the 'Jihad destroy Barney' guy and it just never went to court.
"There was a newspaper article that [said] 'It's OK to beat up Barney', because they lost the lawsuit."
Tommy Avallone. Picture: Supplied'Who was my Barney?'
"You'd think making fun of a fictional character and doing that sort of stuff to something that's 'not real' has no effects; but in some sense it kind of does.
"I was too old for Barney, but who was my Barney...mine was Cookie Monster.
"You go to baseball park with your father, and you see the Cookie Monster getting beat up in front of everyone... it kind of teaches this idea of breaking down these things.
"I think it was the Barney bashing, and some of the Barney success, did have an effect on the family; only because they knew it was going to be successful, but never as big as it was," he added.
