I am a survivor.
I faced every parent's worst nightmare and lived to tell about it.I endured the mental anguish, the emotional torture and the intellectual numbness of an experience I knew I could not avoid.
I stared boredom, juvenility and simple-mindedness right in its big purple face and walked out a hero.
And you can, too. I know you can. You're going to have to, you know.
If you have children who can't count past their own age, you too must encounter the Daffy Dragon of Duncedom, the Laughing Lizard of the Little People, the Round Mound of Kindertown, the one-ton and only ...
Barney.
Prepare, gentle Moms and Dads, for he is about to ruin your Saturday.
What amazes me about today's release of "Barney's Great Adventure" is that it took so long for the chubby purple oaf to make it to the big screen. For that I am grateful. Surely, not a summer will pass now without a sequel.
Barney, created 10 years ago by a Texas woman dissatisfied with children's television programming (kind of ironic, huh?), is a marketing and merchandising giant and star of the top-rated show on PBS.
I know there are adult Barney supporters out there, including our editorial writers, who recently attacked The San Diego Chicken for his public floggings of a Barney look-alike. (Which is a funny bit, but not as hilarious as the "Saturday Night Live" skit in which Charles Barkley slam dunks the eyes off a fake Barney in a friendly game of hoops. I think I have a copy you can borrow.)
I have few complaints about Barney in general. He has made millions of toddlers feel good about themselves, literally saved kids' lives by teaching about fire safety, and his tapes give many weary parents a half-hour break. Given a choice between "Super-Dee-Duper" and a 2-year-old screaming at the top of her lungs, I'll take the thunder-thighed beast.
The trouble with Barney and his two cohorts, concocted only to expand Barney's commercial empire, is that they are so utterly intolerable. Any adult or older kid with an ounce of maturity is forced to leave or "break" the TV.
When you see the film, ask yourself this: Why is each group of kids accompanied only by one parent? You think there wasn't a lot of straw-drawing and arm wrestling going on in those households?
"You take the kids!"
"No, YOU take the kids."
"No, YOU take the kids. I'll clean the house, wash the cars, do the taxes, scrub behind the toilet, change the cat box and clean out whatever's been in that Tupperware for six months."
"No, YOU take the kids. I'll make cookies, paint the house, fix the roof, replace the fence, and call your mother and say something nice."
There was no such argument in my house. I know better than to even ask.
So there I was, standing in line for last Saturday's special sneak preview with other parents who don't wear the pants in the family, wishing I was instead at the Division of Motor Vehicles or even Chuck E. Cheese's.
The movie had one thing going for it. It wasn't a Disney film. I was relatively certain a parent wasn't going to die in the first 20 minutes, and there wouldn't be a hideously evil villain that would have my 3-year-old in tears and running for the exit. Barney is a buffoon but a safe buffoon.
My greatest coping skill turned out to be advice from Barney. Just use your imagination, he says. So I did. I pretended I was watching a decent film.
That worked for about 45 seconds. But then there was a potentially frightening shower scene. The kid walks into the bathroom, the shower turns itself on, the bathtub sinks into the floor, the curtain opens and a 6-foot tyrannosaurus rex appears. Hitchcock would've treated the scene much differently, of course, but I managed to amuse myself momentarily.
There's a science-fiction bent to the film, too. The plot revolves around the origin of a UFO that streaks through the night sky and crashes into a barn.
If they'd thrown in a few swimsuits, I'd say the producers were actually trying to entertain the Dads, an attempt never made in the TV series.
I finally asked my 3-year-old why she likes the babbling bubble-head so much. "Because he eats kitty food and dog food," she said without hesitation.
Huh? I swear that wasn't in the film, although I did doze off for 20 minutes. With that kind of imagination, I guess you can sit through anything.