The parking lot of the Texas mall was a sea of children fidgeting in folding chairs, strollers and their parents’ laps, craning to see the six-foot tall purple dinosaur as he ran onto the stage.
Despite the bulky suit, Barney jumped into the air, waving his short, T-rex arms and spinning to the delighted screams of the children. Little did they know that Barney had been in their midst only hours before on that November day in 2000.
David Joyner, who wore the Barney suit for ten years on the beloved children’s television show and during live tours, decided to arrive at his own performance early at the Colin Creek Mall in Plano, Texas, to sit among and chat with the parents and eager children – just not in the suit.
David, now 54, always knew he wanted to be an entertainer; he just didn’t necessarily expect he would be performing from inside a giant purple dinosaur suit. He wore the 70-pound costume from 1991 to 2001, during the most successful years of the children’s television show, which premiered on television 25 years ago in April.
‘At first, you know, I had a hard time dealing with it. Barney’s getting all this popularity and no one knows it’s me,’ he tells DailyMail.com. ‘After a while, it was almost like God sat me down and said “I’m going to use all your talents to help bring love and joy to children”.
‘Once I kind of received that message and once I knew what Barney was doing and the effect that Barney was causing to so many different children and parents, then it became an honor and then it became like, okay, this is a blessing, this is a joy. And I want to make this the best thing that I’m possibly doing at this moment and to have fun doing it.’
Texas schoolteacher Sheryl Leach came up with the idea for Barney 30 years ago because she wanted to create an education television show for her son, who loved dinosaurs.
In 2000, before his live show at the Colin Creek Mall in Plano, Texas, (pictured) David Joyner, who wore the Barney suit, decided to come early to sit and chat with the parents, only without the dinosaur suit on. He says it was a way for him to connect to his audience during the performance, even though they didn’t know who he was
David Joyner, 54, (pictured) wore the Barney the dinosaur suit for 10 years from 1991 to 2001 on the children’s television show and at live performances
Being Barney was no small task. While Bob West voiced the character, David was inside the cumbersome suit, walking around on set or stage during live performances, doing choreographed dance moves and picking up props.
He even moved the eyes and the mouth, which was controlled by a bar attached to Barney’s bottom jaw that David had wrapped a sponge around and would bite and nod his head in order to move it.
Temperatures inside the suit could reach up to 120 degrees, according to David. And even though he had limited visibility through Barney’s mouth, whenever the mouth was closed he couldn’t see at all. To help him with that, David would practice as if he was blind and would ‘try to feel the energy’ of the people and set around him.
‘Inside I’m nodding up and down, it’s hot, I’m sweating, but I’ve got props and then on top of that, the voice is talking so I have to make sure my nod and my mannerisms are going with the voice,’ he says. ‘And on top of that there’s kids, there’s lighting. You can’t shadow their light.
‘There’s also set design. There’s props on the set. So you can’t be walking through the set destroying things… and of course Barney’s head doesn’t turn because it’s all once piece so you have to portray emotion coming from this character as you’re talking and then also wanting to show different gestures and mannerisms that’s not gonna take the character out of character, because Barney still has certain nuances.’
Despite the difficulties of the character, David took it all in stride, his cheery personality helping him coordinate.
‘On the inside, it almost to me seemed like I was playing the drums… But the key of it all was having fun because if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re having so much fun and so much joy then it could have been a cumbersome situation.’
David initially hadn’t wanted to even audition for the role of Barney. Though he had always loved entertaining people, he had never performed in costume before and wasn’t sure he wanted to be covered up while he was acting.
‘Of course as an actor you want to be seen,’ David says. ‘[But] one of the clichés they say as an actor, you know, if you’re not comfortable, then that’s the role you want. And of course, I wasn’t comfortable. I was like, I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can pull this off. But then it became the role you want, because you want something that’s going to challenge you.’
Taking on the purple dinosaur’s costume was not a simple task. Inside the 70-pound costume, temperatures could reach 120 degrees, according to David, and he had to walk around the set or stage, often doing choreographed dances, interacting with the children and even moving the mouth, which required David to bite a sponge-wrapped bar attached to the bottom jaw and nod his head
At first, David didn’t want to even audition for Barney because even though he loved acting, he had never performed in a costume before and he wanted to be seen as he was beginning his professional acting career
As the fifth of six children growing up in Decatur, Illinois, David loved being in the spotlight. He would entertain his siblings by lip syncing to what was happening on the television from a young age and as he got older, he was given the nickname of ‘Preacher’ by his classmates and friends because of the advice he would give and his ability to read into situations even if they weren’t explained to him.
‘I grew up Christian, in the Methodist faith, but on my father’s side there’s a lot of Native American background. My grandmother, who was very clairvoyant, she could see things before they would happen,’ he says. ‘So even with the Christian upbringing, my family is also very spiritual.’
Even in school, David was always in front of people, on the public speaking team, giving speeches and MCing events and school assemblies. He says he gave his first sermon at the age of 16 and he was elected to do the benediction for his high school graduation.
Instead of going to a four-year school or even going straight into entertainment, David decided to attend ITT Technical Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana, for his Associate’s Degree in electronic engineering technology, with the intention of working for five years before following his dream of performing.
But even as he was pursuing his degree, David still modeled and performed, singing, dancing and even doing comedy, which he continued to do when he moved to Dallas, Texas, in 1984 for a job with Texas Instruments as a software analyst. When he wasn’t working, he did several routines including Michael Jackson, Prince, Fred Astaire and MC Hammer in private clubs and restaurants and he quickly gained a following.
He ended up working at Texas Instruments for six years before he finally felt ready to leave.
Before he auditioned for the role of Barney, David worked at Texas Instruments in Dallas for six years as a software analyst. As TI was recruiting him from ITT Technical institute in Indianapolis, Indiana, he told them that he was planning on leaving after five years to pursue acting, but they still offered him the position. He ended up staying for a sixth year
It was April 1990 when he found out that there would be layoffs, including in his department, so he asked for a severance package so someone else could stay, since he was planning to leave. After his manager said no, he sat down, meditated and decided he would leave at the end of September that year.
A month after he made that decision, David decided to start taking acting classes and doing improv comedy on weekends because ‘even though I was making money dancing, modeling, performing, I was still not doing what I wanted to do as far as an actor’.
As it turns out, the wife of the man who ran David’s acting workshops ran an acting school for children. When they needed a substitute acting teacher to help prepare four- through six-year-olds for a workshop with casting directors and agents from Los Angeles, David agreed to step in.
Using techniques he had learned while he was a live mannequin early in his performance career, he led the children through warm ups that helped them focus and not fidget. His teaching impressed a local casting director, Shirley Abrams, who asked for his headshot and resume.
‘Little did I know, she was the casting director for Barney,’ he says. One week after he put in his two weeks’ notice in at Texas Instruments, Shirley Abrams sent him a request to audition for Barney.
Though David initially turned it down, Abrams told him she wouldn’t take no for an answer and he eventually agreed to audition. At the time, Barney the show consisted of only on a few home videos, which Abrams sent to David to help him prepare for his audition.
The night before he auditioned for Barney, David had a dream that Barney had passed out and David had to resuscitate him. He later realized that if he would just breathe life into Barney and bring energy to the character, he would get the job
As he watched the tapes the night before, he kept falling asleep on his couch. When he finally went to bed, he still wasn’t sure what he was going to do the next day. However, because of the clairvoyance that he believes runs in his family, he says he has dreams that are like messages when he’s trying to figure something – out and that night was no exception.
‘I had a dream that night and in the dream, Barney passes out… [and] I have to give Barney mouth to mouth resuscitation to revive him,’ David says.
But the next morning, he couldn’t figure out what the dream meant. On his way to the audition and in the parking lot of the studio he saw two billboards for Southwest Airlines that said: ‘Breathe life into your vacation’, but it didn’t click until he was walking inside.
‘It hits me as if the light just came on,’ he says. ‘Barney was dead. That’s why I couldn’t watch his videos. Barney is dead, I have to breathe life into Barney. And if I do that, I’m going on vacation!’
And he certainly brought in the energy Barney had lacked. The actors who were auditioning were supposed to wear a Halloween mask and dance to one of Barney’s songs, Mr Knickerbocker. Though he introduced himself calmly, the moment the music came on David went wild.
‘My energy went from about five to 55 and they literally just kind of sat back in their chairs like this wind had blown them away… I’m sure they were sitting there going, what the heck was that?’ he laughs.
At first, a woman was offered the role of Barney ahead of David. Producers asked David to be a backup, but after the woman’s first live show, David says she couldn’t handle the pressure of the heavy suit with all the children at the meet and greet. She had to get out of the suit and she never came back. After that, they offered David to take the role and he agreed
Despite their shock, they brought David in for more rounds of auditions and he made it almost to the end, but the role ended up going to someone else at first.
‘They gave the role to a young lady and then they asked me if I would be backup and I said sure. But I pretty much knew I had the role because it had already been spoken into my spirit,’ he says.
He was right. Before the television show started, Barney had several live performances. When the woman did her first appearance, she couldn’t handle it. She needed to get out of the costume during a meet and greet with the children and she never came back.
‘A lot of different things took place that she wasn’t comfortable with and couldn’t handle,’ David says. ‘So after that they gave me a call and asked if I would consider being Barney.’
When he was first turned down for the role, David realized that it was probably because he brought more energy than the producers were used to, so he decided when he was asked back to take the role, he would tone down the character.
But when he attended his first live performance and heard the cheers of children while he was still behind the curtain, he couldn’t contain himself once the music started.
‘My adrenaline is taking over now, I come leaping out of this thing, jumping up and down on the stage, going from side doing bell kicks, the other side doing bell kicks waving and I’m having a blast,’ he says.
That was just the beginning for the energetic purple dinosaur. David continued to bring that energy over the next ten years as he played the part and he worked hard to make sure he was prepared and fit to be Barney.
‘Number one, I had to make sure my body, mind and spirit was in top physical condition,’ he says.
‘I wanted to make sure that while I was inside, I wanted to be as happy as possible because I also understood, kids pick up on energy and kids are more spiritually connected than adults are, but they just aren’t aware of it intellectually and so I knew that I had to radiate loving happy energy at all times.
‘One of the things that I learned to always do, too, is I would pray before I get in costume. And I would ask God to allow his loving divine spirit to flow through me, through the costume, and let that draw the children in.’
At one point, David even had to get surgery on his wrist because he kept signing so many autographs for children.
‘At first, I’m doing the cortisone shots and the doctor was like, “You know you could stop signing autographs”. I’m like, “I can’t do that!”,’ David says, laughing. ‘So then I finally had the surgery and it was finally taken care of after that.’
After ten years as Barney, David decided it was time for a change, so he moved to Los Angeles where he pursued his television acting career, at first not even putting his role as Barney on his resume because he wanted to be taken seriously
But after ten years, David was ready for a change. The show was getting ready to take a year-long hiatus, and ‘as an actor and a performer, you always want to go to the next level’.
‘After ten years, after prayer and meditating on it, I felt it’s time to move on. It’s time to move to Los Angeles to go to do other acting and if not, then I’ll probably still be stuck in the costume,’ he says.
At first, when he moved to LA, David offered to help out with Barney if they ever needed help, though once he joined the Screen Actors Guild, he could no longer play the role of Barney on television since it was a non-union job. He also kept the fact that he had played Barney for ten years a secret.
‘At first I was asked not to put Barney on my resume,’ he says and because he wanted to be taken seriously as an actor, he didn’t.
However, as he continues to audition for different television roles, he talks about his time as Barney frequently, especially relishing the small moments, such as when he was able to sit with the audience members before his live appearance in Texas in 2000.
‘That little technique changed a whole lot of things for me as a performer,’ he says. ‘It took me to even a higher level as a person because knowing I’m a very spiritual person, one of the things that I’ve always tried to do is not just connect with people, but connect with your spirit, connect with your energy, connect with who you are.
‘Not this shell that makes you up, but who you truly are… Because when you connect with someone on a spiritual level, it takes you to a whole different level of appreciation for that person.’
Since leaving Barney, David has had roles on numerous television shows including Veep, Shameless (pictured), 24, and That 70’s Show
Since Barney, David has had roles on numerous television shows including Veep, Shameless, 24, and That 70’s Show.
He also did another children’s costumed character called Hip Hop Harry, which was on Discovery Kids from 2006 until 2010. The show still produces YouTube videos in multiple languages and the character appears on children’s apps.
But even though he has moved on in his career, David is still thankful for his time as Barney.
‘One of the greatest things that I can say I’ve taken away from it is the fact that I love people. Because I had to interact with so many different people, so many different nationalities, economic backgrounds, but yet still try to connect with them on a spiritual level and connect with them on a higher frequency, so to speak. That even to this day, I just love people. I love being kind, I love being nice.
‘It’s just so great to know that when you put your head down on your pillow at night that you’re making a difference. You’re not out here trying to harm people or take advantage of people or be deceptive toward people, but you’re really enjoying life, having fun, really being kind and considerate in the things that you do.
He adds: ‘Of course, I’m human, there are some things that come at you constantly that you have to look at and go, oh man, why, why, why, but I always look at it as, okay, there’s a lesson here. There’s something that I’m supposed to learn here. And then move forward to that. And a lot of that has come from just interacting with people, from being Barney and taking on that ambassador role.’