Heather's entry on shielding our children from the evils of the world.
Barney is on our list, but atop that is McDonalds, and it's infuriatingly difficult to keep that one out of our children's lives. McDonalds sponsors public television children's programs and the Disney Channel, and those are two of the very few places on the dial with (otherwise) advertising-free programming. McD's even has spots on some children's videos. We pay $60 a month for cable just for Noggin, the only source of purely ad-free passive childertainment—if you don't count Laurie Berkner and Dan Zanes music videos, or that Curious George movie fiasco a while back.
It doesn't matter how food-free their sponsor spots are: Their purposes is to expose my children to the name and the logo. So far we've managed not to learn the name, in part due to diligently skipping the promo spots with our fast forward button, and also not owning a car. I'm pretty sure our immediate family will honor our wishes, but when the kids start spending time with friends in the care of less careful parents, all hope will, no doubt, be lost. Maybe we should institute a no-friends rule before it's too late.
You may not be able to keep them from knowing the name, but you can keep them from eating the food. Kid and I haven't been there in five years. And even then, it was only because they gave away cool little Bionicle LEGO toys with Happy Meals (which otherwise we tossed). Also - and I have no idea how old your sprouts are - teach them to be skeptical consumers. I marched down the cereal aisle with Kid in toddler years chanting 'cereal rots your teeth' and tsk'ing at the cartoon tie-ins on the box (explaining why I was tsk'ing). To this day, no bowl of cereal darkens our breakfast table. Good luck!!!!