That Big Purple Dinosaur Is Teaching Kids To Be Safe

Adults sometimes find it difficult to sit through Barney the Dinosaur’s shows, but so what? Preschoolers adore the big purple lug for their own inscrutable reasons, and the cheerful Barney is a better influence on very young minds than most television fare.

Barney first came to life as a humble videotape in the late 1980s and several years afterward achieved stardom on PBS. His shows are usually nothing more than pleasant singalongs in familiar surroundings with a regular group of kids from his neighborhood.

Recently, however, a Barney tape appeared with the forthright intention of teaching kids something of immediate usefulness, Barney Home Video’s “Barney Safety” (40 minutes, $14.95). The tape combines new footage with scenes from early Barney episodes, all relating to the subject of safety in and around the home.

In the traffic section, children are told not to run into the street, to wear bike helmets and to buckle their seat belts. In the home, they’re cautioned against touching potentially hot objects (a stove or iron) and advised on how to bathe safely.

In the most adventuresome sequence, shot just for this video, Barney and pals learn about life at a fire station and about basic fire safety from a genial firefighter. It’s a serious lesson but the tone is kept light. Thus the idea that a person caught in a smoke-filled house should crawl under the smoke in order to breathe comes across as more fun than frightening.

There are some crucial lessons about staying out of harm’s way that will be impressed on preschoolers who watch “Barney Safety.” So the next time you see a purple dinosaur, show him a little respect.