Purple Power -- After Years On TV, Barney's Fame Expands To Movies

Ten years after a Dallas mom created Barney as a way to entertain her restless 2-year-old, he's bigger than ever with the munchkin bunch and scaling new heights with "Barney's Great Adventure," the stuffed theropod's first feature-length film, which opened last week.

The film is the latest testimony to Barney's survival skills. As late as 1994, entertainment-industry analysts were predicting the dino's imminent demise from overexposure and labeling his creators "bumpkins" and "inexperienced."

"I remember my first week with the company in September 1994, Forbes magazine did an obituary on Barney," says Tim Clott, chief executive officer of Lyrick Studios, the Richardson, Texas-based company that owns the Barney trademark and copyright.

"Last year (Forbes) reported an obituary retraction. It's the first time they've ever done that. It just shows that the industry realizes that Barney is a strong business."

Indeed, "Barney & Friends" straddles the world. The show airs in more than 50 countries on six continents. Barney receives more than 2,000 fan letters a month from as far away as Australia, Japan, Africa and England.

And the movie is certain to give a boost to merchandising sales, which have cycled up and down the past several years, according to toy industry analysts.

"We're looking for as good results as we've experienced in the past. Right now we're the market leader in children's books and videos," says Debbie Ries, Lyrick's vice president of sales.

Barney has also managed to survive intense competition from some 50 preschool television programs, including "Sesame Street," "Arthur," "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Winnie the Pooh."

"When we started Barney, there were only three preschool programs on television at that time," says Sheryl Leach, the show's creator. "The thinking of the day - this goes back to 1987 - was that the children's market was really 6 to 12 years old. The whole preschool market was just not cared about or deemed important. We convinced people that preschoolers were important."

In 1988, Leach teamed up with her father-in-law, Richard Leach, to produce and fund the first three videos at his television production company with a team headed by Dennis DeShazer.

Initial video sales proved lackluster. But the Leaches' big break came in 1991 when Larry Rifkin, an executive with Connecticut Public Television, noticed how mesmerized his 4-year-old daughter, Leora, was by a Barney video he had rented at a local store. Rifkin immediately called the Leaches, and the rest is, well, prehistoric.

Barney has come through in a big way: He's a six-story-high balloon regularly featured at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. He has his own Universal Studios Florida attraction that has reported record-breaking attendance. He also has his own musical stage show tour, "Barney's Big Surprise," that has entertained more than 2 million fans in 76 cities in the United States and Canada.

Meanwhile, a throng of attorneys guards the Barney trademark, and they are not flattered by imitators. They've sent out hundreds of letters to costume-shop owners ordering them to surrender their purple dinosaur costumes. The National Costumers Association in Washington, D.C., reported that Lyrick Studios has sought damages ranging from $7,500 to $75,000 per shop.

Barney look-alikes have shown up everywhere from racy bachelor parties to bars. Parents have complained of parties where the Barney wannabes were grouchy, gruff and hostile.

"With the costumes, we really look at that as protection of what we've created here," DeShazer says.

"We know that young children are among the most vulnerable members of society. When people are out here using a costume for unapproved purposes, you're really endangering the message that we're trying to impart."

Leach's dream is that Barney will live forever.

"I know that it's the dream of everyone connected with Barney that he will be ageless and timeless. I'd love to be 99 years old in a rocking chair and still see Barney doing marvelous things for young children.

"That's my dream, and I want to see it through."