HIS ‘DARK’ SIDE

There was an alleged real-life bad side to the supposedly loveable dinosaur, which only added to the let’s-trashBarney brigade. In 1995 Universal Studios Florida opened the show A Day in the Park with Barney on the site of the Bates Motel set from the 1990 horror movie Psycho IV: The Beginning – although in reality it was more of a creepy coincidence than a symbolic endorsement of Barney’s alleged badness.

Then there was David Joyner, the man who was inside the Barney suit for the first six seasons of the show. He went on to have a career not suitable for kids’ consumption: running a tantric massage clinic that served an exclusively female clientele, with whom he admitted to having unprotected sex.

And then there’s creator Sheryl Leach’s son, Patrick (then 29), who was sentenced in 2015 to 15 years in prison for shooting his neighbour in the chest.

None of which is the purple dino’s fault, of course – but it’s hard to dissuade haters once they get a Barney-sized bee in their bonnet.