Barney & Friends (Korea adaptation)

Baniwa Chingudeul (바니와 친구들) was the second co-production of Barney & Friends. Produced by production company K-Best, this co-production aired on the Korean Broadcasting System from November 4, 2001 to Sptember 26, 2003. The episodes were based on various episodes from Seasons 1 to 6, adapted and translated from the original English versions with different changes.

Why This Adaptation Rocks

 * 1) Just like the Israel adaptation, this is another awesome adaptation, as it introduced Korea to Barney, which entertained many of the country’s children. And for being a legal adaptation with so many episodes to produce in just 2 years, it was handled well for the most part.
 * 2) The costume actors and voice actors for Barney, Baby Bop, and BJ were great and helped make the characters still their likable selves like in the original English adaptation.
 * 3) This adaptation had 3 seasons, which was great as each one had lots of episodes, which were greatly adapted and translated episodes from Seasons 1-6, were handled greatly, and made them just as good as their English counterparts, if not better. Season 1 is considered the best of them all, as it had the most episodes, being 48, and were adapted and translated episodes from the first 2 seasons (the English adaptation’s best seasons).
 * 4) Although it had 2 more seasons, which each had 40 episodes and consisted of adapting and translating later episodes of the English adaptation (after it started to go horribly downhill), it actually turned out great in the end and made all Season 3-6 episodes more enjoyable than their English counterparts. So, unlike Seasons 9-14 of the English adaptation, the Korean adaptation was good from start to finish.
 * 5) The child actors in this adaptation were good.
 * 6) The music maintains to be the same from the English adaptation, and that also helped out the translated songs.
 * 7) The songs are still enjoyable, and are greatly translated from English to Korean.
 * 8) * The songs from Seasons 3-6 of the English adaptation are more enjoyable here and are also greatly translated.
 * 9) This adaptation still has many of the English adaptation’s charms, like the good lessons learned, tackling serious topics like disability, has some funny moments, etc.
 * 10) It improved some problems the English adaptation had.
 * 11) While Mr. Boyd didn't even appear in this adaption (BQ#2), a different character appears to be inspired by Mr. Boyd like a father from "Colors All Around" and a musician from "Barney's Band" appears to have a inspired role from him, which made the replacement of Mr. Boyd somewhat decent, despite not having him.
 * 12) * In the first season of the English adaptation, the Barney Doll had "creepy" eyes. But it’s completely absent here, and the eyes are normal.
 * 13) * In the second season of the English adaptation, when BJ was introduced, his first costume looked ugly. But here, when he was introduced, he has his current, much better looking costume.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Like the English adaptation, this adaptation does have a fair share of problems, like Barney’s constant singing and laughing being repetitive, the "I Love You" song being annoying at times, filler in some episodes, etc.
 * 2) Mr. Boyd (or any equivalent) didn't even appear from this adaption at all, which is disappointing.

Trivia

 * At the end of every episode of this series, the Season 4-6 version of I Love You is always sung by Barney and the kids, who do not leave the set. Instead, Barney disappears during the second section of the song, and they hug each other after the song ends, as the camera zooms over to the Barney doll. (In "Down on Barney's Farm", the camera fades to the doll instead of panning.) However, a few episodes, like "Colors All Around", use the American format, in which the kids say goodbye to Barney and leave before he turns back into a doll.