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Before there was Lyrick Studios, there was The Lyons Group. Short History: The Lyons Group was founded in 1986 by Richard Leach as a sister company to DLM, Inc. in order to produce training videos. It was named after his mother, Bernice Lyons Leach. Their logo was mostly seen at the end of tapes at the time. In 1988, Richard's daughter-in-law Sheryl Leach, an employee at Lyons at the time, created a series of edutainment tapes for preschoolers known as Barney & the Backyard Gang. That series, which later spun off into the TV series Barney & Friends proved popular both locally in Dallas, Texas, resulting in The Lyons Group shifting into a home video distributor in 1989. With its logo appearing at the beginning of tapes, in addition to the end. From 1989 to 1991, Streamline Pictures handled the distribution of Lyons tapes before shifting to in-house distribution. Streamline, DLM, Inc. and Lyons later formed Lyrick Studios in 1990 to produce live-action shows. Following disagreements with Time-Life Video over marketing, The Lyons Group took over as the distributor of Barney & Friends tapes in 1992, forming Barney Home Video as a label of the company. In addition to Barney & Friends, The Lyons Group served as the home video distributor of most of Lyrick's TV library. Additionally, it distributed some public-domain cartoons, Canadian kids programming, animated films, and other titles aimed at families. In 1995, DLM, Inc. (then renamed to The Lyrick Corporation) acquired The Lyons Group in 1995, quietly relaunching them as Lyrick Studios Home Video. Lyrick Studios Home Video continued for 6 more years, expanding its library before closing in 2001, when distribution of Lyrick's titles shifted to Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment (later Sony Pictures Home Entertainment).
