For updates, follow Barney on social media @barneythedinosaur on TikTok and Instagram and @Barney on YouTube.

Barney’s story starts in late 1987 in Allen, Texas. At the time, a former teacher named Sheryl Leach had a two-year old son, Patrick. She struggled to find videos that held his attention.

This was in the earliest stages of “Barney”, when the videos were relatively unknown, somewhat amateurishly filmed and therefore shunted to bottom shelves in video stores. They were the ...

Kids like Leora were Barney's target audience. To make sure he was really onto something, Larry showed the video to some of Leora's friends, kind of like a makeshift focus group for preschoolers.