Tess, our 18-month-old daughter, simply loves Barney and wants to watch his show as often as possible. Unfortunately, like the engineers working during the reactor core breach at Chernobyl, I am also exposed to a nearly fatal dosage of Barney, even sitting in the next room. This has led me down several interesting paths of thought: 1] Why did they model a childrens character after possibly the most ferocious land predator to ever exist? I picture Barneys green room as an abattoir filled with the skeletons of child actors who had grown too old for his show. 2] How did a Tyrannosaurus rex end up integrating into human society? Surely he was a feral anachronism found living on a remote Pacific island, à la King Kong. In my mind I picture his capture as a brutal affair involving the loss of many lives and the use of countless tranquilizer darts; Barney finally going down like Will Ferrell in Old School. When I watch Barneys show with Tess I imagine nervous handlers waiting just off-camera, cattle prods at the ready in case Barney snaps and decides to eat one of his guests onstage. 3] Barney is much smaller than classic T. rex specimens, possibly due to millions of years of sequestered evolution on said remote island. His species would have quickly exhausted its preferred megafauna prey and the resulting restricted diet would have selected for smaller specimens requiring fewer calories to survive. Taxonomically I refer to this T. rex variant as Tyrannosaurus rex Barnicus. I stumbled upon this entertaining page (below) while researching my Barney theories. Its nice to know Im not the only one who has questions.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:39:14 +0000