Who is barneys voice

The character has been succeeded by many other costume performers during Joyner's time and after his resignation. The Barney character was originally voiced by Bob West from until , but since his resignation has been voiced by many other voice actors. Barney was ranked at 3 for the highest paid entertainer, a list compiled by Forbes Magazine, in , following Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.

From , Barney ranked as Billboard's top children's artist. Barney was first created in by Sheryl Leach , who was looking for a way to entertain her then two year old son, Patrick.

When that was proven to be too hard, he became a teddy bear who came to life. In response, Sheryl made Barney a T. Kathy Parker , a fellow teacher-turned-mother who had helped Sheryl create the character, agreed to the change, but on the condition that he was not to appear menacing a realistic t-rex would have scared her daughter Kaitlin.

Some concept names for Barney were Cosby, Colby, and Danny. Co-creator Dennis DeShazer came up with the name Barney. Barney was originally a dark purple color, however, on camera appeared blue.

The costume would weigh about seventy pounds, [10] but was later shaved down to fifty pounds with the final costume. When the mouth was closed, the costume actor could not see anything, even for some variations of the costume, Barney would have its eye mechanism or blinking mechanism. See Also: Barney Through the Years. Originally the character was intended to be performed by one person in terms of doing the voice and being in the costume similar to Big Bird.

Bob West was the first individual hired to portray the character, however he was too tall for the costume that was already made. David Voss was brought in to fulfill the costume performance. The Barney character was originally portrayed as the actor using their hand to move the mouth while another hand was in one arm of the dinosaur, hence leaving Barney's other arm unfilled.

Sometimes, both arms were filled if required. In , he entered the military as a Cavalry Scout where he was based in Mannheim, He was succeeded in the role by David Joyner. The night before the audition, Joyner had a dream that Barney passed out and that he Joyner gave the purple dino mouth-to-mouth CPR.

While driving to the audition, he noticed a billboard that said "Breathe Life Into Your Vacation," which made him think about breathing life into Barney and he decided to be as energetic and animated as possible.

Joyner took some of what David Voss had already instilled in Barney and tried to bring out more personality. The Barney character was now performed with a newly re-designed costume mechanic: the body performer bites down on a bar padded with a sponge connected to Barney's bottom jaw to move his mouth up and down, while giving access to both hands of the costume.

We spoke with Joyner about what it was like being one of the most famous children's characters of all time, and what he is up to now. Follow Tech Insider: On Facebook. Being Barney was never an accident. I was supposed to do this character. Hi I'm David Joyner. I played Barney from until After I got my degree in electronic engineering technology, I worked for Texas Instruments for six years as a software analyst.

Before I was Barney, I was a live mannequin. I would move mechanically. And people would literally bring their children, set them on the mall floor, and go shop. When I was a kid, I wanted to be on television so bad. I would stand in front of the television and basically lip sync. There's a lot of psychic energy in my family, and there's a lot of clairvoyance.

And a lot of times, with me, if I'm trying to figure out a situation, I'll dream about it. Well the night before the audition, I had this dream. And in this dream, Barney passes out. And I have to give Barney mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. So on the way to the audition, I'm sitting at a stoplight, and something says "Look up. It says "Breathe life into your vacation — Southwest Airlines. I had to breathe life into Barney in my dream. If I go into this audition and breathe life into this character, I'm going on vacation.

And that's exactly what I did. So, of course, they called me and asked if I would be Barney. And I said, "Of course. But it was great getting that phone call.

Being inside this costume is pretty cool. Now Barney is about 70 pounds, and it can get over degrees inside. So inside you're sweating profusely. It's a t-rex, so you're basically just up to your elbows in being able to move. And then also, Barney's feet were huge. Now I did have some sneakers inside that were glued to the bottom of the feet.

The head doesn't come off. The head doesn't swivel. There's no facial expressions that can be made. I can only see a certain amount, because of the peripheral of Barney's mouth. And when Barney's mouth is closed, I can't see anything. So what I would literally do is I would walk around my apartment as if I was blind. I would close my eyes, and I would try to feel energy. And try to feel the energy of anything that was around me. And then try to pick things up.