Episode Review: It's Raining, It's Pouring Episode Review: It's Raining, It's Pouring.

The children in this episode are Tasha, Min, Jason and another one I didn't hear them say the name of (a boy that I think might have been hispanic). Is Jason the deaf boy? The kid called Jason had something on that could be hearing aids, but he didn't show any sign of hearing problems other than the hearing aids (I'm not even sure that's what they are, they didn't look like any I've seen before and I am lousy with names so I can't remember if Jason is the name of the deaf kid).

Unsurprisingly the kids are all doing a wonderful job of grining in that wonderfully fake way we all know and hate. They also can't act too well, unless they were meant to be totally overacting.

At the start of the episode all the children are dancing in a circle and singing, a song that hasn't had the words changed so far as I could tell. The Barney plushie is in the centre of the circle, he hasn't even gotten big yet and he's already the centre of attention! They are dancing around holding a colorful parachute (doesn't really look like one but that'a what they call it).

Barney gets bigged and all the children immediately jump him and hug him, nothing different from usual there then.

The children tell Barney that they are very happy to be out because they've had to stay in for two days because it's been raining. Unfortunatly the weather seems to like being annoying, it's starting to rain again. All the children look disapointed and go inside.

Inside the children are all sitting around looking bored and miserable. Barney starts singing about having fun indoors, the kids join in singing and grining their spongie little heads off, that was a quick change of mood. They sing "what can we play on a rainy day?" and sing about some things to do indoors when it's raining. One girl's favorite thing to do is to tell stories, one of the boys suggests they pretend they are sitting around a camp fire and tell stories so they make a pretend tent out of the parachute (that doesn't get shown, it just jumps from the kids deciding to do it to the tent being up).

Jason tells a scary story and the children make an attempt at looking scared, they are all scared because what is happening in the story is very close to what is really happening thanks to BJ wandering around knocking stuff over and tripping because they are in the dark. For once Barney wasn't set up as the kids best friend, "four friends kinda like us and a dinosaur kinda like Barney" is what one of the kids said while telling the story.

One boy says that he plays with a blanket on a rainy day, they don't have a blanket so they decide to play with the parachute. Tasha wants to go first and nobody has any problem with that (not specifically a problem this time but it does get a bit annoying when the kids never disagree about who goes first).

Tasha comes back as Tasha the storyteller, she is wearing the parachute and a hat (she would have had to cut the parachute to make the dress she is wearing but for some reason nobody is annoyed about that, or even thinks of that). She teaches them how to say hello in Swahili and where they speak Swahili, and that they were colorful clothes similar to the parachute but not the same in Africa, some educational content and admitting that the parachute isn't exactly the same as the African dresses.

Tasha tells them all a nice little rhyming story about numbers, then all the kids and Barney count from one to ten together. The kids look just a little old to be learning numbers but at least it's something educational for the kids watching it.

They decide to play number limbo, they sing a song while playing and all manage to get under the limbo bar, except Larrrd Butt Barney who just helps move the bar. This wasn't the same limbo incindent I've heard about that had Barney lifting the bar for Baby Bop, Baby Bop wasn't around for the limbo game in this episode.

Jason then pretends that the parachute is the blanket, he can't sleep even though he has his favorite teddy and pillow so he yells for his mother to bring him a glass of water. Min comes in dressed as mom with some water. If I'd have yelled "Oi mother, get me some water" when I was that age, I can guess her reaction and it wouldn't have been coming in right away with a glass of water, it'd have been much more like "get it yourself" :o). He still can't sleep so his mother tells him to count sheep so he does and gets to sleep.

The sheep he counted were from Tommy DePaola's book, they keep escaping to help people sleep. Tommy seems much too pleased to see Barney considering he is an adult, and talks in a patronising tone to the children, the children all love it, most kids I know that are the age of the kids in the show would probably have been telling him to grow up and quite possibly kicking his ankles.

Barney gets the sheep back in the book, and Tommy is very pleased, even grown ups need a magenta dino to help them sometimes! Barney asks Tommy to read for them and he agrees. While he is reading (story is called "Charlie needs a cloak") the camera is on the book, but it's impossible to follow what's written as it's being read because the camera is on the wrong bit or not on the text at all quite a lot of the time and moves a lot. IMO it's make much sense for a show that is meant to be educational to give viewers the chance to read along if they can.

BJ makes a brolly so that they can all go outside, Min: "Isn't this cosy", did this kid just discover sarcasm?! I think she did, yay!! The brolly isn't big enough though, Barney's Larrrdy ass would get wet 'cos it sticks out too much so they can't go out after all, don't seem too disappointed though.

They sing "rain rain go away, Barney's friends all want to play", was there something wrong with the original words? I think not, so why change them? another sing ripped off by Barney! They also sing "It's raining, it's pouring", they don't change this one. They also sing a mixture of the two which doesn't make any sense at all.

As soon as they finish singing the rain stops and the sun comes out, isn't that convenient?! I wish I could get rid of the rain that easily when I have to walk to lectures in the winter :o). Although they were all looking out of the window and managing to look quite sad whan they were singing, "staying indoors isn't so bad" suddenly, "especially when we tell stories to friends we luv" (Barney seems to be included in that "friends we luv" bit, ack) then they all sing *that* song. At least three of the four children are looking at each other instead of at Barney when they sing the best friends bit of the song.

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