Barney

Film Term:

A quilted cozy that fits around a camera to reduce camera noise. Generally it is only effective on a camera that is pretty quiet to begin with. The term comes from barney blanket, a kind of horse blanket

Glossary of Film Terms - http://homepage.newschool.edu/~schlemoj/film_courses/glossary_of_film_terms/
reprinted with permission

A newbie surfer who is just learning the basics.

Context: Look at that barney, he doesn't even know how to duck dive. Man, go home.

The theme song to the TV show featuring the purple dinosaur, if I remember correctly, runs something like...

I love you
You love me
We're a great big family
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won't you say you love me too?

...sung to the tune of 'knick, knack, paddy whack'

A much better version, taught to me by a small girl we happened to be sharing a campsite with some years ago, runs...

I hate you
You hate me
Let's gang up and kill barney
With an M-16
And a bullet through his head
Sorry, kids, but Barney's dead

It's not big. It's not clever. But isn't it fun?

---

Shale: Now you've made my day just that little extra bit vomit-coloured, threats are winging their merry way toward your secretary as we speak.

Everyone else: What he said.

barn = B = baroque

barney n.

In Commonwealth hackish, `barney' is to fred (sense #1) as bar is to foo. That is, people who commonly use `fred' as their first metasyntactic variable will often use `barney' second. The reference is, of course, to Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in the Flintstones cartoons.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

so save me:

While Barney sings "I Love You" to close each show, the proper theme song is:

Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination,
and when he's tall he's what we call a dinosaur sensation.

Barney's friends are big and small they come from lots of places,
after school they meet to play and sing with happy faces.

Barney shows us lots of things like how to play pretend,
ABCs and 123s and how to be a friend.

Barney comes to play with us whenever we may need him,
Barney can be your friend too if you just make believe him.



I'm sorry. I really am. Direct any and all threats to my secretary.

Children will of course watch anything on television if it is either a)animated or b) features a fluffy animal of some kind. Due to this complete and utter lack of discrimination on their part it falls to us adults to apply at least some semblance of quality control.

This is not always possible, as young children these days display an amazing apptitude for operating even the most complex of electronic appliances and are soon zapping from channel to channel and helping themselves to the video without so much as by your leave.

I have had to admit failure in many respects and have been unable to prevent my sweet children from partaking of the nauseating poison of the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. (I blame my mother-in-law and her unfailing habit of attending car boot sales and offloading everyone's elses cast-offs on my children. Thus my house is full of battered second hand childrens videos.)

I have had to learn to compromise my principles for the sake of domestic harmony.

But I draw the line at Barney. I will not have that cretinous purple dinosaur peddling his loathsome, feel-good, cutsie pie, claptrap in my house thank you very much.

It was therefore with a great deal of pleasure that I heard my daughter, home from school, recite the following rhyme. (And I do so like it when childen actually learn something at school as opposed to doing something particularly creative with old egg-boxes and cotton wool.)

I hate you, you hate me
Barney gave me HIV
I got a shotgun
and shot him in the head
Sorry kiddo, Barney's dead

Would that it were true.