Barney and Friends/YMMV

• Accidental Innuendo: An episode has B.J. becoming Captain Pickles, who then goes to protect the world for pickle lovers everywhere. If not for the fact that this is Barney and Friends, one would think that it was really getting it past the censors.
  • Nevermind the name "B.J."...
  • There's also the ending theme, which encourages hugging and kissing children.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: All that needs to be said is that Barney is a T-Rex and the cast of kids changes every season.
  • Barney is the Beast of Revelations, the Teletubbies are his Horsemen, clowns and smurfs are his armies of darkness.
• Author's Saving Throw: Who remembers that "Never Talk to Strangers" song?
• Badass Decay: Aside from the other criticisms listed on this page, it's just weird to see the awesome Tyrannosaur turned into a cuddly babysitter. At least his great-great-grandfather was fierce...
• Chewing the Scenery: They're speaKING withOUT aNY form of conTEXT.
• Critical Dissonance: Despite being hated by most over the age of three, the show has been one of the greatest merchandising successes ever.
• Ear Worm: "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family..." It may have been mocked and ridiculed to death, but you'll never forget it.
  • How about the opening theme?!
  • Any song from the show can be classified as an earworm: "Mr. Knickerbocker," "Sally the Camel," "If All the Raindrops," etc.
• Family-Unfriendly Aesop: There are some instances which may give the false impression that cheating is okay. In "A Splash Party, Please," when Barney and the kids are having a tug o' war, Min helps the other kids win by tickling Barney. Later, in "Falling In Autumn," Shawn participates in a relay race with a peanut stuck to his spoon with peanut butter. Proponents states that it's safe to assume that these "cheating" ways were just thrown in as jokes, while opponents state that children of the target demographic pick up from mimicking and may copy the action because they do not understand that it's supposed to be a joke (Sadly, in some countries - particularly corrupt ones, this Aesop is Truth in Television).
  • What's next? "It's okay to throw barrels of oil into the ocean"? ... Wait...
  • While "A Little Sister is A Bundle of Joy" and "School is Fun" aren't exactly Family Unfriendly Aesops, imagine how someone who has a little sister who constantly torments him and/or is constantly bullied at school feels when he happens across the episodes.
• Memetic Molester: Unsavorable Urban Legends and playground myths come up about Barney and his actor(s) often. He's also the namesake of the Barney Bunch, Speakonia videos on Newgrounds and YouTube based on its characters visiting various places and doing disgusting things.
• Moe: Tina (in the early Barney & the Backyard Gang videos), Kathy (in Season 1), and some other kids. One girl, Linda, seems to make a connection with Kathy in a reunion special.
• Narm: Sandy Duncan singing "I Love You" at the top of her lungs, when she's by herself in an early video.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: See Alternative Character Interpretation above.
• Older Than They Think: The "I Love You" song first appeared in the Backyard Gang videos, but the song was written in a 1983 children's book prior to its usage on Barney. In 1992, the show's producers made an agreement with songwriter Lee Bernstein where she'd get credit for the song in future episodes (and was paid $6,000 for use of the song). This didn't stop said book's publisher from suing both Bernstein and the produers of Barney & Friends in 1994 over the song's lyrics. The lawsuit was settled later that year and "I Love You" has remained part of the series.
• The Scrappy: The I Love You song. Not only does it not stick as an ear worm to some people, it has been known to push some people's Berserk Button as well.
  • Barney himself, especially during The Nineties.
  • Riff is this to pretty much everyone who stopped watching Barney before he was introduced in 2006.
• Special Effect Failure: In the original three Barney & The Backyard Gang videos, Barney would close each video winking (with a crudely drawn eyelid). In later videos, he would wink with a sparkle in his eye, which continued in the television series.
  • There was also an attempt to animate a breakdancing Barney for the first usage of "Mr. Knickerbocker," using stop-motion animation.
• Tastes Like Diabetes: One of the largest targets of this criticism... There are bullies in real schools, damnit!
• Unfortunate Implications: In "The Wheels on the Bus", the black girl and the Asian boy are in the back, with the two white kids in the front.
• Weird Al Effect: People are now more familiar with the opening theme and the closing theme "I Love You" than the songs they were based on: "Yankee Doodle" and "This Old Man".
• What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: How do we know that the kids didn't just take way too much LSD before the show started and hallucinated the Barney doll coming to life?