Stephen White, first heard about the purple dinosaur through the voice himself, Bob West, who at the time was doing the voice of Chuck E. Cheese as well. Since White was a freelance children's writer at the time, he decided to send in a resume saying that he would like to work with the folks at Barney. After seeing that Barney & Friends was a soon to be PBS series and he didn't hear back from them, he decided to send in another letter of congratulations (for a reminder). The creator of Barney, Sheryl Leach, got back with White quickly. White showed her some of the stuff that he had worked on before with Chuck E. Cheese and he and Mark S. Bernthal were hired.