For the second segment of Color Me Barbra, Streisand and crew ensconced themselves in CBS Studio 41 in New York with an array of circus animals. The production spent $350 for a tiger, $200 for an anteater, and $1200 on penguins—eight at $150 each! “Chaos threatened again,” Streisand recalled. “The lights were hell on the penguins, a lion broke out of its cage, and a baby elephant roared so loud that a nearby llama nearly suffered a heart attack.”

A New York Times reporter described the “more than 30 hours” spent getting the circus segment “in the can”—the production crew taped the circus segment on January 25, 1966:

...part two was achieved through sheer tenacity. Barbra danced out onto a three-ring circus set. A baby elephant named Champagne roared so loudly that a baby llama nearby did a somersault. Barbra sang "Funny Face" in an orange ringmaster's costume. The horse reared, the penguins got sick under the hot lights and had to be carted off to a refrigerated area behind the set. The leopard refused to pose.

Barbra had to worry not about being trampled to death but when to come in on cue. The show was behind schedule and the overtime was costing the star money. Four electricians chased a pig across the set and damaged part of the backdrop. The only light moment came when Barbra sang to an anteater named Izzy. "He must be Jewish," she said, as they touched noses.

It's also true that the penguins didn't work well under the hot television lights — several died. “I feel terrible,” Barbra said. “Can't stand the heat of the lights. They're used to cold climates. I kept saying ‘Put water on them. Put water on them.’ They survived the taping, but died after, I understand.”

For one song, Barbra visited a tiger. “I had to go in a tiger's cage alone. Imagine that! But, the trainer was near by,” she said.

Color Me Barbra first appeared on home video in 1986 on CBS/Fox VHS tape. Ed Green—the original audio engineer for the special—remastered the home video version. Billboard reported that “there were four of five versions of audio for each show” that Green had to work with. Streisand's manager Marty Erlichman coordinated the release of Color Me Barbra and My Name is Barbra to VHS.

Streisand filmed an introduction to her 1966 television special in which she briefly recalled making it.

It's interesting to note that the first home video release of this special contained some videotape editing glitches that were left over from the primitive technology of editing video in 1966.

Before that, however, All-Star Video released the rehearsal version of Color Me Barbra on VHS and Betamax (as well as My Name Is Barbra and Central Park) around 1980. When VHS boomed in the early ‘80’s they stopped production of the one hour tapes and put together two compilation tapes entitled The Barbra Streisand Story Volume I and II. Streisand sued All-Star Video in 1981 for selling unauthorized recordings of her television shows.

CBS rebroadcast Color Me Barbra in 1994, almost 29 years after it originally debuted on the network. CBS edited some content for time (songs were cut from the concert segment—there are more commercials these days than in 1966!).

The DVD of Color Me Barbra was finally released in 2005 in a box set of Streisand's first five television specials. Gone were the 1960’s videotape editing glitches so evident in “Gotta Move” and “The Minute Waltz”. The DVD soundtrack, however, seemed to be the exact same as the 1986 VHS version. Stereo and mono tracks are prevalent. Sometimes the DVD switched from a compressed, narrow-sounding mono track (i.e. “Yesterdays”) to a full stereo one (i.e. “One Kiss”).

Warner/Rhino Entertainment released a solo-packaged version of Color Me Barbra with a striking, full-color photograph of Streisand in July 2006.