The Godlike Powers of Barney The Dinosaur 

The “2 dinosaur years” line implies that he’s still pretty young for whatever species he is. Implying that there’s both more like him and that they are unfathomably old

Fun fact: the original intention for the show was, in fact, that no adult can see Barney period, but this was changed after it was pointed out how “stranger danger” that was.

The concept of Barney being the first imaginary friend that has persisted throughout all human history to continue being an imaginary friend and playmate to children is... oddly sweet. I mean as a kid I hated Barney as much as anyone but there's really no malice or ill-intent in him at all. I can buy him being a deathless, joyful idea of pure friendship made manifest. It almost reads like something out of Sandman.

I just realized, Barney is like Pennywise but feeds off joy. Like how Kirby is made of the same stuff the villains are but just good. Barney is able to conjure images from kids imaginations but uses them to create (and then feed off of) joy rather than the fear that his sibling Pennywise feeds off

"I don't believe in you." "That's okay, Cody. I believe in you." This insinuates that you don't need to 'believe' in Barny for him to exist. All that needs to happen is for Barney to be aware that YOU exist. He is not necessarily a parasite. He is a living cognito hazard that uses children as natural gateways to our reality. A truly unstoppable force of good.

“The only thing Barney has in common with dinosaurs is that they were both put here by God to test our faith” is such a raw line

Funny enough, I remember I was still into Barney as a kid around first or second grade. I remember asking the kids in my class if they liked Barney and they responded like “that show is for babies” I was extremely saddened by this as a seven year old So around that same night (I think), I remember I had a nightmare where Barney appeared on my television. He was all friendly and nice like normal, then he turned to me, looked me straight in the eye, and said “I am now going to steal your imagination.” After that dream, I didn’t like Barney anymore, or at least was somewhat deep in my mind terrified of him. Though I like to keep the story wholesome and say that maybe Barney did this so I wouldn’t be bullied in school. Who could say?

Your description of Barney's ability to manifest from seeing an image of him/an image in your mind is, canonically, how the weeping angels work in doctor who. He can even use time travel like they can and is unfathomably ancient like they are. Barney is a weeping angel

Questioning the omnipotence of a purple children's dinosaur is exactly the content i expect from you TomSka

It’s oddly comforting knowing Barney may be omnipotent yet is kind and compassionate to humans.

I never really got the Barney hate. Looking back, as a kid, he was our friend. People were just overly cynical and liked to take it out on something that brought joy. I hope he’s still bringing comfort to all the kids who need it.

You saying out loud that Barney was the First Imaginary friend dreamt up by the first creature who needed one was so powerful to me it inspired me to make a Fey creature and subsequent adventure for D&D So thanks for these videos. They're filled with charm and energy and I love them every time

Hi, I'm a palaeontologist and the implication that Barney is a 200 million year old dinosaur sent me deep into a spiral questioning what genus of dinosaur Barney actually is. So 200Ma would be roughly the Hettangian, the earliest stage of the Jurassic period. Dinosaurs really as a clade only evolved about 230Ma (the Carnian; Mid Triassic), so the overall amount of speciation and biodiversity within the group was still relatively low compared to what the Dinosauria would eventually become. At this point, the theropods (Barney is, at least, unambiguously a large theropod) had evolved into several ground, potentially the most speciose of which were the Avetheropoda. Within this group, we first start to see the first truly big carnivores occupying apex predator niches in their respective ecosystems. Chronostratigraphically (and perhaps palaeobiogeographically), the largest and most relevant group at this time, in this niche were the Ceratosauria. Further within this group, superficial similarities with the Tyrannosauridae, i.e. short arms, can be found within the Abelisauridae. This family is also noted by the synapomorphic brachyrostran condition (indeed, Barney's face does look anteroposteriorally compressed). Furthermore, his eyebrows are quite pronounced, which is similar to the supraorbital ridges present on most ceratosaur species. Due to the time constraints, Barney would have to have evolved extremely early within the history of this family. As such, I believe Barney to be a basal abelisaurid/abelisauroid such as Eoabelisaurus or Rugops. Please note this is largely conjecture and a thought experiment and is also silly, don't be mean to me lol.

The way Tom is describing the abilities of Barney is like how a scientist would describe an anomaly at the SCP Foundation.

I always wondered why Barney never had that big of an impact over here in Australia & then I remembered we were responsible for creating The Wiggles. We were tarnished ground for this omnipotent purple god

I have rewatched this multiple times because it is funny and it helps the channel. Now with that pathetic attempt to get anyone's attention done, I have one thing to say: Barney isn't a parasite. He is a symbiotic life form. Not like Venom or Carnage, but in the natural sense. He makes kids happy and gives them some fun memories and even some life lessons in exchange for having someone to play with. He just genuinely wants to be your childhood friend and I almost regret trying to shoot Ki blast at my Barney doll as a kid. I say almost because they obviously didn't work and at no point did he show up to tell me to stop. I think that he was just happy that I was playing with him.

Barney saying "I believe in you" to Cody can be interpreted as a threat. It's like saying "You don't do this thing to me that makes me exist, but I do it for you" implying he can stop it and end Cody.

I was 100% expecting a “Sonic is either a god or could kill god” scenario but with Barney and i was not disappointed. Barney bless everyone!

Speaking as someone who had a lot of imaginary friends as a kid, I love the interpretation of Barney being the “ultimate imaginary friend,” cuz he really is! It doesn’t make me LIKE him more, necessarily, but I feel like I get the appeal now.

Forget Film Theory, Tomska is my new go to guy for overanalysing children shows 😂

This series is rapidly turning into Unravelled but for terrifying children's shows. I love it.

The idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent dinosaur that just wants to be friends with everyone is so wholesome

Other people have said how barney is like an SCP, what they haven't mentioned is how, despite being a mind parasite, he requires a physical form to enter the world. This would make him much more containable as they could just round up all of the barney toys.

The creepiest choice was casting Sweeney Todd to play the grandfather for some crazy reason. George Hearn is pretty much only known for scary-voiced characters, and he's been the villain in tons of popular kids shows and movies.

now i want to see tom argue that some horror creature is secretly child friendly as hell and deep dive to try make the lore secretly wholesome

Barney is the most dangerous memetic hazard. The SCP foundation is gonna have one hell of a time containing him.

17:55 "Barney is built like a f!@# Pixar Mom... Smash." - Thomas James Ridgewell, 2023

I have to say, tomska doing critical review/dark undertone facts/theories is honestly something I would love more of. His overanalyzing of these beloved childhood properties is genuinely entertaining. Well played, sir. Looking forward to the next one he looks into. Like maybe Thunderbirds.

"After all, we can see that he can summon meteorites... and what happened to those dinosaurs?" What a line. Especially in the context of Barney lmao

Toms repeated decents into madness over childrens cartoons is my new favorite series.

I love that the message of the movie is that hating on a silly children's mascot who brings them joy is a little mean-spirited, and Tom took that as a personal attack, and basically did the equivalent of a youtube essayist's angry response to another youtube essayist's video.

honestly the way Tom describes the abilities of Barney at 14:45, Barney seems somewhat akin to an eldritch horror

Tomska should totally do a series on the horrors of children shows

“Am I a figment of Barney’s imagination?!” is a statement used exclusively by the people who ask the real questions.

That...that hot grease scream is just in my mind forever now. Thanks Tom. Thanks Barney.

I can't hate Barney. I have a lot of nostalgic memories associated with him. My favorite one: We had a huge playroom filled with toys, growing up. I had three siblings, but my little sister (5 or 6) and I (10 or 11) were the oldest, so my mom told us to clean the playroom while she was gone. I hated cleaning, so I was going to trick my little sister into cleaning the whole thing by herself, by telling her to go ahead and start cleaning while I went to the bathroom real quick. Obviously, my brilliant plan was to hide in the bathroom for awhile and come back when my sister was almost done. I waited a bit, and came and peeked around the corner to make sure she was actually cleaning and not waiting on me. Instead of cleaning, she was in the floor, in the middle of the room, on her knees, holding up a stuffed Barney doll, literally crying, and begging "OH PLEASE BARNEY! COME TO LIFE AND HELP ME CLEEEAAANNN!!!WAHHH!!" That's the best I can imitate what it sounded like. It was sad, but hilarious, and I burst out laughing, blowing my cover in the process. I felt so bad she was bawling, I started cleaning, but I couldn't stop laughing the whole time, either. It made cleaning go by faster. I went through my little phase of hating Barney in the 90's when all of my school friends hated him. But honestly, me and my sister watched it together all the time, sang all the stupid songs from it, and I couldn't hate Barney after that day in the playroom. Anytime I hear the name Barney, I smile, thinking about that memory.

I can’t wait until Tom finds the motivation to explore the strange world of Moomins. Definitely sign me up for that video.

So, Barney is an abstract concept that can manifest in the physical world by infecting the minds of mortals. Barney is a Chaos God.

If Barney saying, “That’s okay, Cody, I believe in you,” means that Cody is created by Barney’s imagination, even though Cody is 100 percent physically real, could that mean Barney is some sort of Lovecraft Esc God?

LESS THAN A MINUTE IN.. and he confirms another diagnosis. Round of applause lads

I like the implication that Barney is the manifestation of the concept of imaginary friends just like Sandman is the manifestation of the concept of dreams. The story that the first kid he ever was a friend of was another dinosaur is so cute and wholesome I love it.

I remember as a little kid my dad showed me the Weird Al Jurassic Park song where Barney gets his head eaten clean off and starts gushing blood. I was at the age where my friends and I were singing all the anti-barney parodies (7 or 8 I can't remember) but seeing Barney's neck gushing blood before the dinosaur that ate it coughs the head back out rattled me to my core. I thought about how terrible it was that a character that was invented to help support children got mutilated as a joke, and it just made me feel really guilty for singing all those songs. I asked my 4 year old sister if I could borrow her Barney plush that night, so that I might offer emotional support to Barney and take comfort knowing that Weird Al was simply making a joke (as he's often known to do)

This makes so much sense. This was a very thorough deep dive into this important topic, but let me add in the one more piece of context that I thought was overlooked: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God.” - Barney, probably

Barney could easily be recontextualised as a horror character. Like the smile monster, only you can see him and the more you believe in him thr stronger he gets.

Tom, I can accept an explanation about the trains in Thomas the Tank Engine being able to die. I can accept the fact that the boats in Tugs are submersed and breedable, but Barney the Dinosaur being overpowered? It just feels like a stretch.

Barney Thanos timestamps Reality: 13:00 Power: 17:18 Soul: 19:57 Space: 20:36 Time: 24:36 Mind: 26:16

31:10 So you might say....unable to comprehend, our mind would swap the visuals of god into something more comprehensible. Like, lets say.....an about 2 meter tall purple costume

Never expect the purple not even dinosaur looking giant mascot could be an eldridge horror and could possibly fit within the same universe as lovecraftians taking and breaking mind of many in family friendly manner

I'm surprised Tom could get through any part of Barney with his well-known, crippling fear of mascots.

Tom is thoroughly into his "Dissecting Children's Media" arc, and I'm HERE for it!

Barney is an immortal, omniscient, reality-bending, pocket-dimension making, time-traveling cognitohazard #Justiceforcody

26:07 If that were Dinosaur years baby bop would be from the very end of the Carboniferous, the same time as the giant millipede Arthropleura and giant griffinfly Meganeura and long before Dinosaurs first appeared. That would also mean that B.J was from the early Cryogenian, one of the super ancient snowball earths and around the same time as the first visible multicellular life, before even eyes and plants existed.

With how crazy these episodes get, we need a Brian David Gilbert and Tomska crossover on literally just any random topic and it'll be perfection

I feel like Charlie knew what was going to happen if Tom saw that movie and she still rolled with it.

What if Barney was like Pennywise/IT? Their abilities are very similar in nature, with the core of their powers focusing on Belief. And if you believe in them, they have power over you, but if you don't they're extremely limited. So what if he's just the polar opposite of IT? While IT causes fear and pain, Barney brings joy and important life lessons to children. ...This makes me want to see an epic cinematic battle of Dark vs Light where Barney is protecting kids from Pennywise trying to eat them

I love how Barney can easily be made into an SCP

When the first thing I hear is "Ignoring the signs of autism" I know Tomska made a good video

Whoever did the lighting in this movie needs a promotion, seriously why is it so good?? especially the barn shots

if barney manifests physically through people's imaginations, does that mean he can be in multiple places at once if different groups of people imagine him into reality at the same time?? is barney omnipresent?!

11:25 so.... Barney is a mandela catalog creature. Or a keter class scp (keter doesnt mean deadly. Just that he's very hard to near impossible to contain)

Like an episode of Defunctland and FilmTheory but with the unhinged energy of TomSka.

Wait a minute... an interdimensional being that takes kids on whimsical adventures through space and reality that speaks baby.... Barney is the Doctor isn't he?

27:34 it appears he has not recovered from the All Star references video

So. Barney is able to alter someone’s perception of reality, to the point where it is difficult for even the audience to tell what’s real and what’s fake. Much of the messing around he does requires the person to know about him, he’s able to make things appear from nowhere that are very clearly tangible, and most importantly, he can *summon cosmic objects with the potential to cause real world consequence* Barney has very similar powers to fucking **Sephiroth** One-Winged Dino

I can't express how much I love that while the deep dive goes into complete chaos, you still view Barney as something that is wholesome and unproblematic. I went into kindergarten around the tail end of Barneymania (early 2000's) and was actually made fun of for liking Barney because enough parents drilled it into their kids heads that Barney was a bad thing. To see millennials today absolutely dismantle that unnecessary hate makes me feel seen.

I love how Barney can be interpreted as a lovecaftain being with powers over reality beyond human understanding

I will always remember "The Purple Abyss", a website devoted to a series of short stories describing how demonic Barney is.

I personally think barney is a thoughtform, a physical/semi-physical manifestation of a persons/group of peoples thoughts, emotions and even memories, having the ability to interact with the outside world, be it in minor or major ways, depending on the amount of power that is comes from the amount of peoples thoughts and emotions and how strong those feelings are. If he was around when dinosaurs lived, that means that there may have been dinosaurs that became sentient/self aware enough that they all had similar thoughts and beliefs that would manifest as Barney, which he would may not have been as powerful as he is now but still has a good amount of power. Probably when the dinosaurs died out and he survived, his powers for millions of years started to weaken due to not having animals that could believe in him as much as the prior species, until hominids started evolving, which the brains of each species were becoming more sapient and self aware that when the early humans encountered him, they'd worship him as a god, which meant as humans developed more, Barney grew stronger, but he wasn't wide spread, he was only in a certain part of the world, until we invented something that would make him at peak strength we see today, Radio and TV. This meant people who heard and saw him who had access to these pieces of media could further reinforce his strength, due to the power of belief and emotions, making him more and more powerful and make it more difficult for him to wiped out. He does live inside the imagination of kids and people in general, but the power he has gathered from the combined thoughts and emotions of humanity, made him into a fully physical but also extremely dangerous entity, and the memories of Barney are always there, your brain has created pathways to remember him, so he can't truly be gotten rid of. P.s. this was silly thing I just over thought about, kinda of using the idea that Niel Gaiman's American God's is based on, gods being created through the thoughts, emotions and beliefs of people. And I thought this was fun

32:53 Y'know, while I'm far from a Barney fan, i find it pretty wholesome that a Dinosaur from way back then got so lonely that it suddenly gained enough sentience to learn how to create an imaginary friend.

I love how in Tom's list of Barney Parodies, there are the expected dinosaurs, but then there's Mr. Potato.

This deep dive theory into Barney's abilities and history is so fun! I loved how absolutely mad it sounds but also makes sense because Barney is truly an omnipotent friend. #JusticeforCody #JusticeforBabyBop Baby Bop was my favorite character broo. I literally remember hugging her plush more than I have hugged Barney. I just think she's really cute TTwTT

Barney is basically one of the first ever SCPs before SCP was even a thing 😂

Im glad with this video, to the people that didnt know barney, they can too now finally share the haunting thoughts which include barney lucking in the shadows of them.

things i learned from this video. 1. Tom is only 2 years older than me. 2. Elliot is a mythical creature. 3. we need to somehow send Tom a babybop plushie.

11:25 "Barny is a Memetic-Hazard" isn't the kind of take I was expecting, but it surprisingly tracks...

Barney is a great old one, An eldritch abomination, From the Void it was deployed, upon our imagination! Watching you in your dreams, Savoring every nightmare scream. Thriving on your suffering, Your soul he is devouring!

The fact that Eddie watched it with him has me cackling. This man *does* have a child, but instead his adult friend was the one who forced him to watch Barney.

I audibly wheezed through my nose at hearing Mark's "Smash" come out of Tom's mouth. Brilliant.

Barney is a dinosaur, from your imagination. Once he has entered your world, he will wreak all damnation.

"But mom has never seen him cuz she doesn't know our secret" is INCREDIBLY CREEPY OMG. The implications of Barney not letting (most) parents see him is kinda... pedo-y.

Barney is a lovecraftian entity. He latches onto the minds of children, alters their perceptions and sanity, compels them to spread his existence, and turns perception to reality.

I used to watch Barney as a kid and now I see him occasionally lurking in dark corners. He isn't very scary, in fact I've grown pretty fond of seeing him. Its almost comforting

Wherever you go, Wherever you may be, Barney will always be there in our minds and hearts.

Very much enjoying Tom turning random characters into SCPs. This is a fun format

What’s really puzzling is that Barney is implied to have caused the shooting star all to win over the little boy who wasn’t having it. And it’s implied to be an eldrich rainbow creature in the beginning as far as anyone knows. Was Barney really willing to go as far as to gift an eldrich space creature to the kid so he would validate his existence?

I love the "Tom explains every little detail about a kids show" show, gotta be one of my favorite shows

Barney would literally be classified as a SCP info hazard.

Barney is one personality shift away from being a dope horror novel

"Tom becomes a lunatic over some some children's cartoon show for half and hour" is becoming my favourite series

It was the 90s. I was too old for Barney to hop on the hate train, but he's harmless enough. You can do worse than a purple dinosaur mascot singing about love and friendship.

So Barney is a keter class cognitohazard SCP with the ability to warp reality around him and has a nasty habit of shadow realming adults that see him someone should probably get the foundation onto that

18:00 Is that Markiplier saying smash? It sounds like him saying the word from one of his Pokemon smash or pass videos.

If The Doctor can speak baby, and Barney can speak baby, does that make Barney a Time Lord? 🤔

My daughter was obsessed with Barney! At first I was annoyed but man it kept her attention and actually taught her stuff so it grew on me. We took her to see Barney Live, named our cat Twinken after that weird egg creature and had a puppet that was the bottom of the egg plus Twinken. It was... a lot. I still sing the clean up song 😂 She's 22 now and i can't wait to show her this video!! Great job as always Tom!

11:06 This whole segment, and its wording just. reminds me so viscerally of SCP for some reason. The idea of Barney literally being a cognitohazard who, once seen, can manifest to viewers to spread its influence further is so comical and also terrifying

I just find it kind of funny that the guy who played the grandpa, George Hearn, was also the first replacement for Sweeney Todd on Broadway, and played the same character during the (relatively) short national tour it went on after closing. And was absolutely terrifying in the role.

And while making this video, Tom was suffering from a ear worm as “I love you” was playing constantly in his brain.

I'm proud of you for doing a whole video about Barney without mentioning that one of the character's names is a slang term for fellacio.

I am thoroughly enjoying this series of analyzing the lore of children shows

I have the vaguest of memories of being maybe four or five years old (so early 2000s) and being in daycare during the summer, and being placed, with the other overactive kids, infront of a CRT with a Barney VHS playing. I remember being absolutely enthralled by it, and i remember my mom dragging me away from the tv and yelling at ne later. Then she wondered why i never said anything to her until i was like, thirteen or so.