Sandy Duncan Admits She Didn’t Realize ‘Barney & the Backyard Gang’ Was Going to Be a Children’s Show

Sandy Duncan Barney — Bonnie Schiffman/TV Guide/NBC/Everett Collection; Hit Entertainment/Everett Collection

79-year-old Sandy Duncan stopped by the AM radio show Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia to talk about her long career, including some surprising roles. Duncan is best known as Broadway’s Peter Pan but younger fans may recognize her as the mom on Barney & the Backyard Gang, the direct-to-video series that served as the start of the impressive run of Barney & Friends and launched the purple dinosaur into stardom. However, Duncan’s memories of the big purple dinosaur are a bit less rosy.

During the interview, Sibilia asked about her time on the show. Duncan revealed that she was asked to film the series during a writers strike, which stopped production of her series The Hogan Family. Apparently, she was so thrilled to get a gig on her break, especially since it was shooting near her family home in Dallas, Texas, that she didn’t ask too many questions about the show’s content.

VALERIE, (aka THE HOGAN FAMILY, aka VALERIE'S FAMILY), Sandy Duncan, 1986-1991

Bonnie Schiffman/TV Guide/NBC/Everett Collection

Duncan admitted that when she got there to film, she was disappointed to discover that it was a children’s show! “When I got there, and saw what it was, I went ‘Oh my god, what have I done?’ … it really was a children’s, children’s, children’s show.”

After filming her episodes and going back to The Hogan Family, Duncan shared that the creators asked if she would like to be a part of the new series they were working on with PBS, featuring Barney once more. Duncan thought to herself, “Those poor people. They’re gonna lose all their money.”

THE HOGAN FAMILY (aka VALERIE'S FAMILY), Sandy Duncan, 1986-91

Lorimar Television/Everett Collection

Of course, Duncan was wrong and Barney was a huge success with ’90s children all over the country (myself included) becoming obsessed with that purple dinosaur. The following year, Duncan and her own children watched the Barney balloon being inflated for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and her son, Mikey joked, “Mom, we could be on our own island at this point, and have our own airplane and boat if you’d done (Barney).”

However, not everyone was thrilled with Barney and Duncan remembered another time when Burt Reynolds himself snuck up behind her at an event and said about his household, “I wanted to kill you … all we have on television is you and Barney!”

If you’re interested in listening to the entire Nostalgia Tonight interview with Duncan, listen for free here.