If you were a toddler or you have a toddler, then you're probably familiar with the Barney song by now. But rather than inspire love, the show annoyed Burt Reynolds so much that he wanted to kill one performer.
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During an appearance on Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia, Sandy Duncan says that she used to tease her kids about why she quit Barney & the Backyard Gang. Duncan appeared as a mom in the series. She told her kids, "Somebody would have killed me by now, because you know some parents. I might not have survived that."
That somebody may have been Burt Reynolds. The actor once approached her.
She explained, "Burt Reynolds, I can't say [where] exactly, but we were at a big gathering, one of those events, and somebody behind my back creeped up and whispered in my ear, 'I wanted to kill you,' because he had a toddler, and he said, 'All we have on television is you and Barney.'"
Burt Reynolds Threat
That theme song and show inspired many parents to madness. The performer who got the biggest brunt was probably the man behind Barney's voice, original performer Bob West.
"There were certain things, certain messages that people would send that were pretty threatening," Bob West shared previously. "If you get a death threat from a middle school child who sends you an email, then it doesn't make me feel bad for me. It makes me feel bad for them because they're obviously going through something that's leading them to act out this way."
As for Duncan, she enjoyed filming her part on the show but wasn't willing to commit to the series.
She explained, "We filmed it, and it was very much a [children's] show. It ended because I had to go back to work and they had shot their pilot, which I did three episodes. And they came out to have a meeting with me and they said, they all had Texas accents, and they said, 'Sandy, now we're going to do a series of it and we're going to put it on, if you do it, they'll put it on PBS... we're going to have plush toys and do all this.' "
May have saved her life, who knows.
