In Death to Smoochy — his dark satire of kiddie TV shows — director Danny DeVito makes a Barney-like character the victim of evil works. Does he have an axe to grind with the perky purple dinosaur?
"First of all, I don't have anything against Barney," DeVito grins. "I mean, Barney is a pretty nice... whatever he is. My kids were more Sesame Street than Barney. Though, it's nice to think that there are Barneys in the world — because what else are you gonna shoot at?"
Yikes! Smoochy is rife with such sharp sentiments, aiming to send up Hollywood's merchandising tactics toward children. Still, DeVito claims he doesn't mean to offend his industry colleagues. "I'm really sensitive to hurting people's feelings," he says, "even though I like to go into the dark side of things. I don't want anybody to come away from the movie feeling like they've been slighted in any way. Agents and lawyers are kind of beyond it — you can rag 'em a little bit. In terms of the meanness of the movie... I just wanted to stretch the envelope as far as I could without doing too much harm.
"My big intention behind it is to have fun," DeVito adds. "I hold the mirror up to children's television. It's no secret that we do sell plastic and sugar to our kids. That's something that you can think about during the movie, or after the movie, and see if you can do anything about it." Food for thought.
