The Terrifying True Story Behind the Barney Suit

“This is the true story behind Barney and Friends—and it’s genuinely terrifying.”

In the early 1990s, a small studio in Dallas hired a struggling children’s performer named Barnaby Grin to test a purple dinosaur mascot costume. The producers wanted something soft and harmless. From the first recording session, the crew noticed that whenever Barnaby put on the suit, his voice changed in a way that didn’t sound like acting.

Then people started disappearing.

The first was cameraman Phil McCracken. The last tape he shot showed Barnaby in full costume, standing alone on the set, staring directly into the camera long after everyone else had left. Over the next few months, three more crew members vanished. The studio replaced them quietly and kept filming. After each disappearance, the Barney suit was found somewhere it shouldn’t have  ...