Too be fair, other than Sesame Street having a larger adult fan base (as of late, anyway), we kinda had to beg and plead and write letters over and over about how Sesame Street hasn't released any classic materials for the older fan base, and that was a process of years before the first Old School DVD even came out. Heck, there was a long amount of time before Sesame Street even acknowledged that it had an adult audience with money who would give said money to them in exchange for anything. If you told us that there were innuendo filled Elmo T-shirts for sale in adult sized then, we'd've called you crazy!
There were the terrible days where we had to tape trade or buy the 10 dollar and up half hour videos for one clip! It's so easy to forget the days before Youtube and the Sesame Street video website. So don't lose heart on that yet. They just have to know you're out there.
Well, there are adult Barney products out there, mostly sold at Spencer's Gifts, and they are selling well - They're similar to the
Sesame ones, except HiT is MUCH more strict on what types of things that Barney can be on. (For example, there's no way that there will be Barney bikinis competing with the Elmo and Cookie Monster ones) But, honestly, they're probably mostly being bought by people who think it's cute, not loyal Barney fans. (I've bought everything that my local Spenser's has stocked, just for the record)
Since
Barney is so strictly for children, I kind of doubt that he'll ever get to the adult popularity status that
Sesame Street is at. (Every teen/adult Barney fan I know is one that's been watching since they were in the target audience, and never gave it up)
That said, like they're doing with
Sesame, releasing the older videos as normal Barney DVDs for kids would be a good idea. Next year will be Barney's twenty-fifth year, and considering that the videos were so popular, it's safe to say that there are new parents, uncles, aunts, etc. that are looking for specific Barney titles from their childhoods to share with their own children.
Though, it must be said, HiT was doing this for a little while - The last "First time on DVD" release was 2007's release of
You Can Be Anything! from 2002. (The oldest Barney video on DVD is 1994's
Imagination Island, which was rereleased in 2004) When Lionsgate started distrubting HiT Entertainment's DVDs, the only classic Barney DVDs coming out were re-releases of titles that were already on DVD before then.
There are several Barney videos not on DVD, and considering that most new Barney DVDs are just collections of modern (2002 -) episodes, it's strange that HiT's not putting out some of the older titles.
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But enough about Barney - I'm actually a bit curious about something regarding this Sesame set.
Considering that content from around this time appears on regular Sesame DVDs, I wonder if this third
Old School volume will have the "For adults only" warning that the first two had.
Anybody here know yet?