Barney's bad, but for some reason I am far more tolerant of the big purple dinosaur than I used to be. They at least sing songs, speak english, and teach stuff. You are absolutely right about those fixed-grin kids. I wonder if they give them happy-juice before every show.

We had a big family get together in February at my house to celebrate the birth of my second. Somebody showed up with Barney the Movie. For some reason before anybody realized Barney was on the TV and all the womenfolk were upstairs and out of sight. Since there was nowhere else in the house to retreat and it was extremely cold outside all the men had to socialize amidst Barney in a top hat singing about some damned alien egg the size of a football that was going to hatch and grant everybody's dreams. 90 minutes later, we could have easily formed a lynch mob to hang Barney from the nearest tree.