COLUMN
Stories from GG’s Toy Box
By Grahame Grassby
Story 11 — Barney, The Wiggles and the Richard C. Leach Story
In 1988, Richard C Leach, formed the Lyons Group, based in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, in order to finance, produce and distribute a series of direct-to-video home videos titled Barney and the Backyard Gang for his son Jim’s wife Sheryl Leach (photo below), who was the principal creator of Barney the dinosaur.
Three years after the launch of the home video series, Barney was picked up by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the US and the series was subsequently produced for television as Barney & Friends which began airing on PBS in April 1992.
Barney was an instantaneous smash hit with preschoolers and quickly became the biggest preschool property in the world – at the height of Barney’s popularity, the plush toys were so popular that it was impossible for any company other than the Lyons Group to buy Barney coloured purple fabric anywhere in the world for more than a year.
In 1994 the Lyons Group changed its name to Lyrick Studios and as a TV production company, produced the TV series Wishbone for PBS in 1995.
In the late 1990s, Lyrick acquired the home video distribution rights in the US for VeggieTales and The Wiggles which were both huge sellers on video cassettes and later on DVD.
In order to introduce The Wiggles into the US market Lyrick included The Wiggles music video clips on all Barney home videos and when The Wiggles initially toured the US, they provided the live interval entertainment at Barney Live on Stage concerts.
In 2000, Sheryl Leach and Richard Leach’s son, Jim, separated and in February 2001, Richard Leach, with no longer a reason to own a children’s TV business, and with none of his other children wanting to run the business, he sold Lyrick Studios for US$275 million to Hit Entertainment.
3 months later in May 2001 Richard C. Leach tripped and fell over at the Dallas Fort Worth, Texas airport, hitting his head and died.
This article originally appeared in Edition 12 of The Toy Universe Magazine
