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Barney the Dinosaur

dinosaur from the television series Barney & Friends

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ61819348 ↗
Source-derived summary

Barney the Dinosaur is a fictional anthropomorphic purple Tyrannosaurus rex who is the titular character of the Barney franchise. Barney is known for conveying educational messages to children through songs and dance routines, and is characterized as friendly and huggable, with an optimistic attitude. The character was created by Sheryl Leach and debuted in 1988 on Barney & the Backyard Gang, a direct-to-video series. Barney next appeared on the network show Barney & Friends, which ran from 1992 until 2010. He has since appeared in various other media, including films and video games.

Description

Barney the Dinosaur is the main character of the Barney franchise. He is an anthropomorphic purple Tyrannosaurus rex with a green stomach in stuffed animal likeness, who comes to life through the children's imaginations. His theme song is "Barney is a Dinosaur", whose tune is based on "Yankee Doodle". Barney often quotes things as being "Super dee-duper". Episodes frequently end with the song "I Love You", sung to the tune of "This Old Man".

Editorial summary

“Barney the Dinosaur” enters the record as dinosaur from the television series Barney & Friends. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Barney, Dinosaur and dinosaur can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1988, 1992, 2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Barney, Dinosaur and dinosaur.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Barney the Dinosaur” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Barney, Dinosaur and dinosaur provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q61819348. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1992 and 2010.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Barney the Dinosaur”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Barney the Dinosaur primary sources, Barney the Dinosaur archive and Barney research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Barney the Dinosaur”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Barney the Dinosaur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.