I saw Barney again tonight, singing, dancing & hitting the drums. Isn't he weird? JC, our "adopted" kid, resumed playing Barney shows on dvd. For the past couple of months, we thought he outgrew these shows already as he would always insist on watching either Shrek or The Incredibles. Boy, were we wrong! And we really thought we'll never see that purple dinosaur ever again.

So there was Barney, moving in time to Dino Dancing Tunes & singing Baby Bop's Hop Song. I swear, soon I'll be able to sing all Barney songs by heart.

Anyways, the ultimate question that's been bugging me ever since I saw that thing on tv suddenly bugged me again -- WHY IS HE PURPLE? Why not a more acceptable dinosaur-like color, say moss green or brown perhaps?

Looks like I'm not the only one who's wondering why... I searched "barney purple" in google and it returned 1.68 million results! Here are some findings from my so-called research:
  1. Someone paid a fee to ask this ultimate question at answers.google.com. However, the asker rejected the answer. I think it was too serious for him to consider. It just said that purple is an appealing color for children and that it helps develop their imagination. If I was the one who asked, I would probably reject that too... There was another one who answered that Barney was supposed to be red, but since it was a threatening color and yellow and blue are out of the question, they opted for puple as a compromise. Furthermore, the color purple is easier to "technologically reproduce", especially for old TVs. Hmmm... are those enough answers for me to put the question to rest? Nah...
  2. In Urban Dictionary, they have accepted Barney Purple as an acceptable color "slang". They even used it in a sentence: "I had to get them to re-paint the whole room. I am NOT having my living room Barney purple!"
  3. Jihad.net has created a role-playing game called Destroy Barney! But since I'm not into role-playing games, I didn't explore this further.
  4. I found an archived short article in The New York Times' website which refers to a previously written piece titled "Of All Dinosaurs, Why Must This One Thrive?", referring to Barney as a "talking eggplant."
So there you have it... my attempts at having the "ultimate" question answered. But I'm still in the dark -- why is Barney purple again?!?!?