A Day At The Beach is a 1989 direct-to-video that was released on February 24, 1989. It was the third video to be released in the American live-action direct-to-video series Barney & The Backyard Gang.
Plot[]
Dad had planned a special beach trip for his family, but then while at work, he calls Mom telling her that he has to work on the day they planned to go to the beach and that they decided to postpone the beach trip to the next weekend. Jason, Adam, Luci and Tina feel sorry for Michael and Amy. No one knows what to do until Barney comes to life. Not knowing Barney, the rest of the gang are surprised at the six-foot purple dinosaur appearing before them. Nervously, Tina comes and she gives Barney a hug after he introduces himself in song.
With the power of imagination, Barney transports the kids to the beach on a flying swimming pool. From searching for shells to exploring a pirate ship, Barney and the Backyard Gang have fun exploring all that the beach has to offer. They even go under the sea, meeting Barney's friend, Molly the Mermaid, before returning home safely.
When the rest of the Backyard Gang go home and Barney returns to his doll form, Michael and Amy go inside their house at the same time Dad returned home, he and Mom tell them that Dad asked his job if he can finish his work at home so that he can have his promised beach trip with his family and his job agreed.
With their beach trip back as scheduled, Amy left her pail in the kitchen filled with sand from her beach trip with Barney with Mom and Dad thinking something suspicious is going on with Dad asking Mom what she, Michael and Amy did when he wasn't home.
Cast[]
- Barney (Voice: Bob West, Costume: David Voss)
- Michael (Brian Eppes)
- Amy (Becky Swonke)
- Luci (Leah Montes)
- Tina (Jessica Zucha)
- Jason (Salim Grant)
- Adam (Alexander Jhin)
- Michael and Amy's Mom (Sandy Duncan)
- Michael and Amy's Dad (Bob Reed)
- Molly the Mermaid (Voice: Sandy Duncan, Body: Nome)
Songs[]
- "Barney Theme Song"
- "I Love You" (reprise in the end credits)
- "Three Little Speckled Frogs"
- "She Waded in the Water"
- "The More We Get Together"
- "Barney is Our Dinosaur"
- "A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea"
- "This is the Way We Walk the Beach"
- "Are You Hungry?"
- "Peanut Butter"
- "Swimming, Swimming"
- "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea"
- "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"
- "This is the Way We Leave the Beach"
Examples[]
- Comically Missing the Point: Luci walks in on Michael and Amy in the pool and asks if they have room for another person, and they say yes. The rest of the Backyard Gang enter. When Michael says that Luci specifically said one person, they each reply “I’m only one”, with Tina adding “And I’m four!” (years old)
- Flight: Barney and the Gang fly to and from the beach in a plastic swimming pool.
- Gentle Giant: Four-year-old Tina seems to be afraid of Barney when she first meets him, until he offers to give her a hug, which she accepts.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: Molly the Mermaid
- Tag-along Kid: Luci is annoyed that Tina follows her around, until Michael and Amy’s mom says that that’s because she (Tina) is so proud of her big sister.[1]
Production[]
Production for this video (along with The Backyard Show and Three Wishes) took place in June 1988 at ColorDynamics in Allen, Texas. Due to the blue screen effects that were used during production, Barney appears an eggplant purple or almost gray in some scenes, while he is usually a royal purple color. Computer-generated birds were animated at Symbolics Graphics Division by Matt Elson.
Casting[]
Molly the Mermaid was intended to be portrayed by Sandy Duncan, however, due to Duncan being slotted to film for only one week on set, she was unable to film for the role. The body portrayal was ultimately given to Nome, one of the assistant directors for Barney & The Backyard Gang. Nome's face was originally going to be replaced with Duncan's through the use of CG, but couldn't due to technical restraints at the time.
Writing[]
The script for A Day At The Beach was written between April 2 and May 7 of 1988. Pat Reeder completed the first and third drafts of the script respectively on April 2, 1988 and again in late April. Co-creator of the video series, Kathy Parker completed the second draft on April 19, 1988 and Frank H. Olsen completed the fourth draft on May 7, 1988. The final shooting script was completed in late May 1988.
During development, several changes were made to the script. In the original first draft, Barney was originally going to be a female sea serpent named "Cecelia" (also spelled as Sea-celia) who took the form of an inflatable that was attached to the pool. The original intention was to have a female character for Sandy Duncan to fill the role if needed. It was ultimately decided that the idea was rejected and Barney would retain his name and gender. It also featured the appearance of an ice cream truck and going down a submarine when visiting Miriam (a character who was later changed to Molly the Mermaid) under the sea. Like to the first draft of The Backyard Show, Michael and Amy were originally going to be named Billy and Annie.
First Draft[]
The First Draft Script to Barney and the Backyard Gang
Release[]
Delay[]
Originally, this video was supposed to be released in October of 1988[2] and to be the second video to have been released after The Backyard Show. The delay for the video was caused by post-production difficulties such as the heavy use of chroma key screen work being done for use within the backgrounds and the technology restraint to replace Nome's face with Sandy Duncan on Molly the Mermaid done by using CG. Due to these occurring difficulties, the release for this video was delayed until February of 1989 which explains why the copyright shows as 1989 at the end of the credits.
Packaging[]
Upon the original release, A Day At The Beach would sometimes be packaged with the audio cassette and storybook adaptation of the same name. For both the video, audio cassette and book, the suggested retail price was $24.95. To purchase the video itself, the suggested retail price was $19.95 and for storybook and audio cassette together, the suggested retail price was $6.65.
Gallery[]
Releases[]
Scenes[]
Alternate and Deleted Scenes[]
Front VHS Cover[]
Tile Card[]
Awards and nominations[]
| Year | Award | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Parents Choice Award | Won | [3] |
Audio cassette and book of A Day at the Beach.
Other media[]
Audio cassette[]
Main Article: A Day at the Beach (Audio Cassette)
Book[]
Main Article: A Day at the Beach (Book)
This video was adapted into a book of the same name. Released in 1989, this book was written by the creators of Barney & The Backyard Gang, Sheryl Leach and Kathy Parker.
Trivia[]
- This is the only video in series that Sandy Duncan sings "I Love You" on her own.
- Sandy Duncan is the one singing "I Love You" here, rather than Barney and/or the kids.
- This serves as the first Beach Episode of the Barney franchise.
- This video serves as the pilot which takes place before all the other videos in the Backyard Gang series, since most of the gang meet Barney (with the exceptions of Michael and Amy).
- Unlike previous Barney & The Backyard Gang videos, Barney doesn't come alive from singing, "I Love You".
- During the opening sequence of this video, two of the scenes (one of them from this video, and the other from Three Wishes) shown are from the final versions, rather than the demo versions which both use the same CGI background.
- It was revealed that Tina was 4 years old and doesn't know how to swim in this video.
Goofs[]
- When finished singing "She Waded In The Water", when Mom sits down, she grabs the Barney doll by his head, however, it is shown she's placing down by holding his body.
- The Barney doll's position on the chair changes throughout the beginning of the video. In addition, after Mom sets him down, he disappears during the song, "The More We Get Together". Then, he reappears (most likely a reused shot) when the kids hear his voice.
- When saying his magic words, Barney voice is deep, but in a preview for the video (shown only in the original release of the video than remove in later re-releases) Barney's voice is softer.
- When finished singing "A Sailor Went To Sea, Sea, Sea" when starting to land on the beach, Barney is shown holding onto Tina then slips from Barney's arms and later shown standing in Barney's arms.
- On the pirate ship, during the wide shots of the whole ship and cast, the studio can be seen just slightly above the set.
- When Barney turns back into a doll, the pool is missing.
Occurrences[]
- This video marked:
- The final video in the first trilogy to have the Sandy Duncan intro and outro speeches. The next five videos (as well as reissues of the early videos) had Barney himself take over the previews.
- The final video with Barney being royal purple. After that, Barney was magenta, though his color was still considered purple in all media since Barney Goes To School.
- The final appearance of the 1988-1989 Barney costume. Although it would be used for public appearances until 1990 when it started to fall apart to the point where it become unrecognizable.
- The very first time something happens to the Barney doll before coming to life, when Michael splashed into the pool and got the Barney doll wet.
- The final appearance of the 1988-1989 Barney doll.
- The final appearances of Jason, Michael and Amy's Mom, and Dad.
- The final video to use the original version of the Backyard Gang theme song as it was changed starting with the next video.
- The first time where Barney is physically shown in doll form while speaking off screen before coming to life.
People[]
- Sandy Duncan is given the most screen time in this video, taking over much of the first third of the episode.
- This was the final Barney video to have Stephen Bates Baltes as the music director.
References[]
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Barney's Design Story, Collection Update & More! | Live From Barney's Couch Ep. 1 June 11, 2022 Retrieved February 23, 2023
- ↑ | DUMPING THE LITTLE DINOSAUR THAT COULD
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