Barney, Baby Bop, BJ, Riff and the kids put on a twist on a classic fairy tale story of "Little Red Rockin' Hood" where a wolf and a young girl combined their music together to form "Country Rock." ...

Still a highly ranked PBS preschool staple, “Barney & Friends” is one of the most downloaded shows on the network’s 24-hour PBS Kids Sprout video-on-demand service.

The new series comes 15 years after the last original Barney & Friends episode aired in 2009. Max appears to be banking on familiarity and a bit of nostalgia to bring in young viewers.

* Barney has given more than 2,160 hugs on "Barney & Friends." * Barney is the No. 2 property on Sprout's Video on Demand, averaging 3.5 million downloads per month.

Gikas also noted that Lyrick – which taped its last “Barney & Friends” episode in 1999 – is gearing up to produce a new, 40-episode Barney show scheduled to launch next year.

Back in mid-1992, a public outcry forced an embarrassed PBS to reverse its decision to cancel the new “Barney & Friends” children’s show. The network scraped up $1.75 million… ...