Some Sites for People Who Really, Really, Really Don’t Like Barney

In cyberspace, far away from the restrictive realities of real-world law and order, interactive killing is all the rage for frustrated fans and foes of the famous. At innumerable sites, one can wallop a slew of undeservedly famous folk. Yep, punching and smacking public figures has emerged as its very own genre in Internet gaming. One can slap a Spice Girl, wallop Bill Gates and torture Tori Spelling.

On Friday, loving parents across the country will run screaming in the streets as the world’s most annoying dinosaur debuts in his first motion picture. “Barney’s Great Adventure” could push Barney-haters over the edge. So in the interest of positive parent-child relations, we offer this helpful guide to safe Barney-bashing.

To get your adrenaline levels worked up, start at the official Barney site (https://barneyonline.com/Barney/Nav/newsinpurplemovie.html). You’ll learn that the movie is a musical in which “Barney and his friends go on a magical journey that begins with a mystery and ends with the introduction of a brand-new character!!” And you’ll find that a new line of 12-inch Barney, Baby Bop and BJ plush toys based on the movie will sell for a suggested price of $17.99 each.

So quick, go to Barney Is Pure Evil! (https://www.angelfire.com/ri/radoh/diediedie.html). This is a link-laden launch pad to innumerable locales where death or at least pain awaits the tubby purple creature who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “extinct.”

Over at Celebrity Slugfest (https://www.slugfest.com/), virtual violence is as easy as ordering takeout. Select from a menu that offers a variety of available punching bags; Bullies (such as O.J. Simpson and David Letterman), Meanies (Gates and Rush Limbaugh) or Wusses (Spelling and a purple dinosaur changed for legal purposes to Blarney), then wait for Shockwave to load and start smacking. Celebrity Slugfest is one of the most stylish of the celebrity violence games.

If you’re merely mildly irritated by Barney, the Help the Tick Throw a Dart Into the Eye of Evil site should suffice. Here (https://vidalia.unh.edu/ ~black/java/dart/dart.html) you can jab darts at Barney and then toss a few at Garfield and Limbaugh.

At Attack Barney (https://www.outofservice.com/barney/), you can machine-gun the fossil to your heart’s content. Sound effects are ever so satisfying and each click of the mouse leaves a nice-sized bullet hole in the saccharine-sweet animal.

At the Barney Fun Page (https://impressive.net/games/barney/fun.cgi), you select your weapon of destruction, then whack away. Start with a fresh Barney or see recent Barney corpses. Imagination is key here as the images are rather low-tech.

After such an exhausting virtual workout, you’re bound to be hungry. Check out the Barney Cookbook at https://wco.com/ ~keebler/cgi-bin/cookbook.cgi?0, where you’ll see recipes for Barney Burgers, Purple Sushi and Barney Pin~ata Surprise.

Erika Milvy is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. She can be reached at erika@well.com.