PHILADELPHIA — Barney, the big, purple dinosaur's ever-present smile, his saccharine song lyrics that force-fed love to the masses, engendered a level of hate few children's characters have ever seen.
Barney stuffed animals were torn apart and run over at public events. An online group declared "jihad" on him a decade before most Americans had even heard that word. His most infamous song, "I Love You," may have been used to torture prisoners.
Tommy Avallone, a Haddon Heights, Camden County, native, spent two years immersed in the Barney universe researching his latest documentary, "I Love You, You Hate Me." The experience, he said, didn't drive him over the edge; it made him a better father, and a little less cynical.
"Why would we make people feel bad for liking something? Super simple things can sometimes heal scars or knock down barriers," Avallone, 39, said during a recent interview. "I hope the film makes some people rethink the things they say around others, especially children. Barney has done that for me."
Avallone, who lives in Audubon, New Jersey, with his wife and two children, has explored other, more beloved cultural phenomenons in the past, including Santa Claus and Bill Murray. Too old to enjoy "Barney & Friends," which ran from 1992 to 2010, Avallone said he grew up dismissing the show as kiddie pablum like most tweens, teens and adults. But that focused ire, the organized hate directed at Barney for years, is what drew his interest as a filmmaker. Specifically, it was an old news clip of a “Barney Bashing” event at the University of Nebraska.
"At the end, the newscasters said, 'That's the future of the country'," he said. "And I thought it would be great to explore our current times, to explore love and hate, though the lens of Barney."
The two-part documentary, which debuts on Peacock Wednesday, is an examination of that hate, not a celebration. Meeting the people behind the purple costume, the musicians who wrote the songs, and the now-grown children who appeared in the popular television show, do much to humanize the show. Singer Demi Lovato, who appeared on the show as a child, has said Barney "saved her life."
Most of the show's cast and creators earnestly believed in the message.
"Barney stands for inclusion, acceptance," Bob West, the original voice of Barney, says in the documentary's trailer.
Children's television stars Bill Nye, the Science Guy and Steve Burns of "Blue's Clues" make appearances. The documentary also takes turns into true crime and tantric sex. Seriously.
Avallone began filmmaking when he was a student at Haddon Heights High School. His "Station Crew" made home movies, parody music videos, doing just about anything to get some attention in the bucolic suburb. At 20, Avallone ran for mayor of Haddon Heights and lost.
"I was just like 'Hey, that sounds like fun,'" Avallone told The Inquirer during election season in 2003. "My goal is to really be a filmmaker."
Since then, Avallone has made four films and helped produce many more, including documentaries that have explored fan cultures — "Ghostheads" about "Ghostbusters" fans and "This is Gwar" about the "the humans who have fought to keep alive" the metal group Gwar. Working on "I Love You, You Hate Me" with Peacock was Avallone's first time working with a major studio and quite a change for him.
"I'm used to me and two other people working on something, not a whole team, so having all the support was something new," he said. "There's going to be more eyes on this film than anything I've ever done, so I'm excited to see how it plays out."
While promoting the Barney documentary, Avallone is in the midst of another project, "The House From ...," which will take viewers into iconic homes from film and television. He's visited the "Full House" home, along with filming locations from "Golden Girls" and "Friday" to name a few.
"I just want to keep doing big projects and smaller ones," he said. "That's the only thing that will keep me sane."
