Washington June 25, 1993 (PETER FUNK PRESS)

Barney the dinosaur, star of the children's television show Barney, went berserk this morning during his show and ate three of his child co-stars.

The mayhem occurred in the Pretend Room while Barney and his co-stars sang the song "Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me." In the second verse, Barney stopped singing and muttered that he had not eaten breakfast. He started staring at the children. Drops of saliva dripped from his mouth. His stomach growled. His eyes widened and pupils dilated much like someone on the third week of a radical diet of designer water and raw grass, who stumbles upon a cheesecake in a bakery window. Just as the children finished the song, Barney started to shiver. Suddenly, he just grabbed the children and one by one dropped them down his mouth like appetizers.

A fourth child only escaped because Barney ate the third child too fast, and he bent over choking for several minutes, allowing the child to run away. Barney nearly passed out, but a fortuitous belch cleared the obstruction. He then stood erect, complained of a severe thirst, and asked for a double gin and tonic.

This all seemed very ironic, since Barney had just given a ten minute lesson, demonstrating to children how to chew one's food properly to prevent choking. The lesson even included a rhyming song with lyrics instructing children on the proper technique of the Heimlich maneuver. Following it, Barney gave a ten minute plea for responsible drinking among kindergartners.

Before Barney finished his gin and tonic, the police arrived and arrested him on three counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted murder, and a misdemeanor charge of chewing with his mouth open.

The Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS), producers of Barney, estimates seven million children and 300,000 very strange adults saw the killings. However, it estimates that over sixty million people saw the show that night when many of its local affiliates broadcast the show again as part of their fund drive. PBS local affiliates claimed record donations from viewers during the rebroadcast, especially when the stations ran Barney eating breakfast in slow motion. They also reported receiving thousands of supportive letters which said, "Now that's what I call culture. Keep it up!"

News of Barney's arrest shocked the show business world. Barney comes from a show business family. His grandfather did stunt work in the film King Kong and worked as technical advisor on the film King Kong Versus Mohammed Ali. Barney's father played in the movie 1,000,000 Years B.C. and its sequel 1,000,001 B.C. His mother ran an acting school, which became famous for teaching iguanas the Stanislasky methods.

Barney began his career as a tap dancer. Later, he starred in many Broadway shows in which he broke down many barriers against reptiles. He played Professor Higgins in an all serpent version of Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady. He played Curly in Oklahoma in the first show produced and directed by stegosauruses. His music theater career ended though when he tripped over his tail during a dance scene in West Side Story. He received a severe head injury, and his I.Q dropped seventy points, giving him the intelligence of a learned potato. He had to quit the music theater but got a job playing himself on own children's TV show.

Upon Barney's arrest, he hired flamboyant defense attorney A.P. Hee-Haw Ripsnort to defend him. Ripsnort is a smooth, down home, southern lawyer who speaks with a New York accent. He wears Rhet Butler suits with a prostitute's lace garter belt wrapped around his upper arm. In court, he wears no shoes or socks and asks beautiful jurywomen it they'd like to arm wrestle sometime. While cross-examining witnesses, he eats corn on the cob and offers prosecuting attorneys a chew of his tobacco. He specializes in defending TV creature actors. For instance he has defended Dino of The Flintstones, Alf of the show Alf, and Herve Villachaez of Fantasy Island. He became famous for successfully defending Kermit the Frog of the Muppets from a vicious palimony suit brought on by Miss Piggy.

Ripsnort said he would base Barney's defense on temporary insanity, for only hours before the killings Barney had watched a pirate video cassette of the film Jurassic Park fifteen times consecutively. Ripsnort will make the argument that the gratuitous violence in the film Jurassic Park motivated Barney to consume children, a diet that even the American Pork Producers does not approve because of its high cholesterol. Ripsnort intends to present clips from Jurassic Park, showing dinosaurs hunting and eating humans, to the jury as part of Barney's defense. He will precede the clips with a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

No matter the outcome of the trial, however, Barney has no future on television. The Federal Communications Center (FCC) intends to ban him from public airwaves for eating children in daylight hours, a violation of FCC rules.

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July 20th,1998