Battle for Dream Island

Battle for Dream Island
"Well, everybody, they are building the island of luxury. It's called Dream Island." — Announcer
Genre: Adventure Comedy Fantasy Drama Country: United States Release Date: January 1, 2010 – present Network(s): YouTube Created by: Cary Huang Michael Huang Distributed by: YouTube Starring: Cary Huang Michael Huang Satomi Hinatsu Kenzie Bryant Sam Lee Seasons: 5 Episodes: 74

Battle for Dream Island (often shortened to BFDI) is a American animated reality TV viewer-voting web series created by Michael and Cary Huang, who are most known by their YouTube channel name, jacknjellify. The series is about a competition between inanimate, anthropomorphic objects. It premiered on January 1, 2010. It has five seasons: BFDI, BFDIA (Battle for Dream Island Again), IDFB (Island Dream for Battle), BFB (Battle for BFDI/Battle for BFB) (also called as BFB pre-split/post-split) and BFDI:TPOT (Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two).

Plot

Season 1

"Battle for Dream Island" tells a story of twenty, later twenty one, inanimate anthropomorphic objects living in a place called Goiky, where they have known each other their whole lives. They are living peacefully until a mysterious announcer drops from the sky and announces a competition to win "Dream Island", a luxury island that all the objects lust after. They're split into two teams at first, The Squishy Cherries, and The Squashy Grapes. They competed in challenges each episode, and the losing team's fate is put in the hands of the viewers, who decide in the comments section who they want to be eliminated from the show. The format continued with several plot twists until three contestants were left competing, then a winner out of three was directly voted. This contestant was declared the winner and gets to choose who is to be allowed onto the island with them.

Season 2

"Battle for Dream Island Again" tells a story of 22 inanimate objects (12 veterans, 10 newbies) that were voted by the viewers to compete for Dream Island, which despite declaring a winner last season, still doesn't have an owner. The contestants are divided up into 2 teams, and before a contest, players may switch teams if they want to. Contests are chosen by spinning a wheel, and the winning team gets immunity, while the losing team is up for elimination. The viewers vote by rating (liking/disliking) contestants' videos. The contestant with the most likes on his/her video can spin a wheel, and receive a prize depending on when the wheel stops, while the contestant who has the most dislikes on his/her video is eliminated and sent to the Tiny Loser Chamber, which is itself located in the Locker of Losers. After TV locks the Locker of Losers from the inside, eliminated contestants are are relocated to the Weak Trembling Fortress, a poorly created wooden chamber built by Tennis Ball.

Season 3

"Island Dream for Battle" takes place three years after "Battle for Dream Island Again" episode 5e. The Firey Speaker Box has disappeared, and the BFDI contestants now live in Yoyleland. Woody and many more former contestants have been recovered. The show is a reverse of BFDI, as every episode, the viewers vote who to take out of the TLC, rather than which contestant to put in the TLC. The show has also been diminished by the competition format and is now focused more on the humor, the story, and even the characters.

Season 4

Unlike "Island Dream for Battle", "Battle for BFDI/BFB" goes back to the traditional format of challenges and eliminations, similar to the first and second seasons. The elimination style changed to a choice of saving rather than eliminating in BFB 17. The art style is more simplified and animated more loosely, which in turn allowed the running time of the first episode to be nearly half an hour-long, and later episodes to be able to be made within a shorter time frame.

Season 5

Unlike post-split "Battle for BFB", "Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two" will focus to be similar to the pre-split "Battle for BFB" episodes. Likewise, "The Power of Two" episodes have higher quality in both animation and writing, but tend to release less frequently, unlike "Battle for BFB", which tends to have its episodes 3–4 weeks apart.

Why Dream Island Should Belong To It

1. The show is very simple to understand, as it's about anthropomorphic objects competing against each other in a series of reality web shows, and they come in all sorts of fun and wacky personalities.
2. Many of the characters are great, funny, cute, heartwarming, likeable and memorable, such as Firey, Leafy, Pin (BFDIA-onward), Coiny (BFDIA-onward), Flower (BFB), Announcer, Book (except in BFB), Blocky, Gelatin (expect in BFB), Woody, Needle, Golf Ball (except in BFDI), Fanny, Gaty, Two, Eraser, Four, X, Donut, Pen, Barf Bag, Naily, Saw, Teardrop, etc.
3. Many of the challenges and eliminations (known as Cake at Stake) are fun to watch and are entertaining.
   • Speaking of Cake at Stake, the song "Hey Two!" by Anthony Kos in season 5 (creator of Brawl of the Objects) along with the animation (by Highvan) that goes along with it are creative and well-done.
4. It would also inspire other people to do their own object shows on the internet (usually on Youtube) such as Adam Katz/AnimationEpic (who would voice Nickel) with Inanimate Insanity, Niall Burns/Xanyleaves (who would later voice Two and Profily in this show) with Object Overload, and etc. Which makes sense, as it was the first object show that started the whole Object Show community and it's whole fanbase.
5. Amazing animation from the second season onwards, it also improves as the show progress, especially on Battle for BFDI/BFB (season 4).
6. A lot of voice acting for the characters are either adorable or just plain appealing (e.g. Bell, Needle, etc.).
7. Two finale episodes, "Return of the Hang Glider" (BFDI 25) and "Chapter Complete" (BFB 30), were good ways to end the seasons.
8. Wonderful and great soundtracks, courtesy of by Michael Huang in BFB onwards and Coal Bones since BFDI:TPOT. The music borrowed from Kevin MacLeod also sounds great (especially for not using obvious tracks such as "Scheming Weasel" or "Sneaky Snitch"). In fact, "New Friendly", one of MacLeod's tracks, is well known as the music that opens up the very first episode of the show.
9. Several funny moments here and there. For example, Needle's "Don't call me Needy!", or funny faces, such as Book's and Puffball's.
10. The stingers are not only made for a quick laugh, but also can occasionally foreshadow events in the following episode(s).
11. Most of the episodes are good and entertaining, especially in the first season.
12. It is one of the few object shows to have a weekly object show of it's own, that being BFDI Mini (a weekly object show that is an object show that has a small amount of characters, the episodes are short, and the episodes come out everyday or at least a few days away after the previous episodes was released).
13. Battle for BFDI and The Power of Two are an improvement over the previous seasons of BFDI. As not only have they introduced the hand-drawn style animation in the OSC, but they also take the time to flesh out old and new characters.
    • All of the contestants who were in the TLC which was in the LOL were all bought back all with new personalities that make each of the RCs special.
14. Speaking of the contestants who were in the TLC, their redesigns in IDFB onwards are quite nice and looking more appealing.
15. For a long time, BFDIA was presumed to be cancelled after 5e. But after 10 years of hiatus, it got revived, and it's simultaneously airing alongside BFDI:TPOT, and the charm remains the same as the pre-hiatus era of the seasons. Meaning that the post-hiatus BFDIA serves as a prequel to IDFB and will fill in the gaps that will lead to said third season.
16. Many memorable and good episodes such as:
    • Take The Plunge, which started the show on a decent note.
    • The Long-lost Yoyle City
    • Taste The Sweetness
    • Welcome Back
    • Getting Teardrop To Talk
    • Today's Very Special Episode
    • Enter The Exit
    • What Do You Think of Roleplay?
    • "Return of the Rocket Ship" and "Don't Dig Straight Down" (which are considered some of the best episodes of the series)
    • The Four is Lava
    • Take the Tower
    • Who Stole Donut's Diary?
    • The Hidden Contestant
    • You Know Those Buttons Don't Do Anything, Right?
    • The Seven Wonders of Goiky
    • Outbreak At Stake
    • Oneirophobe's Nightmare
17. Amazing coding done in Processing 3 by Cary Huang, used for fun gags and amazing visuals, such as Davidland, Yoyle City, and the opening to BFDIA 7.
18. The teams over the course of the series are awesome and can provide funny names. (E.g: Team8s, BLEH aka 8namesatonce, A Better Name Than That, Are You Okay, etc)
19. Many different characters have fun little quirks, such as Donut, Shampoo, Avocado, and Scissors having parts of their bodies acting as their mouths. Another example being Puffball's vocoded voice and ability to change size.
20. This show's Earth is different from the original Earth, with new continents and locations such as:
    • Goiky, the main location of the BFDI universe and where the original show takes place.
    • Yoyleland, a large, purple land filled with yoyle berries, which turns any consumer into yoyle metal, a substance known to be stronger than regular metal.
      • Yoyle City, a large abandoned city the contestants traveled through in BFDIA 5E and even lived at during IDFB.
    • Davidland, a vas sea of stick creatures known as Davidians.
    • The Desert, home to the World's Largest Oven.
    • Goiky Canal, and at some point the water stops and is replaced with an abyss filled with objects and gizmos, such as giant lamps and planets!
21. It managed to get Thomas Ridgewell, the creator of ASDFMovie, to voice a character in BFDIA after he saw the 9th episode reference his "everybody do the flop" gag. Zach Kornfield, co-star of The Try Guys, also voice acted in a few episodes.
22. The iconic scream sound effect, although it can get annoying and overused at times.
23. Because they are objects, many characters come with their own fun, scary, and unique abilities that revolve around the objects they are:
    • Firey can light anything and anyone on fire, though usually against his own will. Same with Firey Jr.
    • Lightning can electrocute other characters.
    • Black Hole can compress and spaghettify anyone who enters his horizon, which is what made him start the Death P.A.C.T. movement.
    • Marker, Pen, and Pencil can use their tips to write.
    • Pin, Naily, and Needle can stab with their points. Saw can also cut things with her blade.
    • Bubble and Balloony can pop easily, and Ice Cube and Ruby can shatter easily.
    • Snowball can merge with surrounding snow to become bigger. Same thing with Teardrop but with surrounding water.
    • Bell can use her string to get to higher places, and others can climb it, usually against her will however.
    • Tennis Ball can bounce very high if he falls from a high place.
    • Bomby can, as his name suggests, explode. Additionally he can explode purple paint with his purple painted variant.

Eliminated Qualities

1. The sound effects can get very annoying and overused, most notably the scream which is lazily used when even as much as only 2 contestants are screaming at once.
2. The episodes can be mean-spirited at times. For example, in "Why Would You Do This On A Swingset" up to "Return of the Rocket Ship", Taco is accused by a few of the Bleh members (most especially, Book) for how she abandoned her team, even though she didn't, since she has been stuck inside the jawbreaker until the said episode.
   • "What Do You Think of Roleplay?" also, that has one moment. Book has literally entered the flanderization territory where she jumps into conclusions and believes Taco/Pin abandoned her team once again, when Taco was trying to make her team win. Even through, she later realizes that Taco didn't betray her team in "Return of the Rocket Ship" and saved Taco and Ice Cube from the lava in "Don't Dig Straight Down".
3. The major problem of BFB pre-split was having a very large cast as there's 64 contestants. It can be hard to give them time for developing or appearing them talk or compete in challenges, even if everyone got their shine in BFB 1, 13, 14, 17, 22, 29 and 30 the rest of the season had some of the characters either not talking, not competing, being there for filler, or even not appearing at all. It would even cause issues in the long run, especially on making episodes, since they never did double eliminations until BFDI:TPOT 3 introduced this type of elimination method. This lead to some cases of flanderization of characters (especially from problematic characters like Gelatin and Book), when they decided to do fewer minutes of episodes.
   • That was until BFB 16 "The Escape from Four" where they split season 4 into two shows so 14 contestants will still compete on BFB, while the other 40 will compete on BFDI:TPOT. Even though this was a rather good decision, it doesn't change the fact that the original idea was to kill off the contestants competing in BFDI:TPOT.
   • On the other hand, post-split BFB downgraded in quality, as it suffered from atrocious writing, the plot being all over the place, ditching a lot of story/character arcs that were established during the pre-split seasons, and a lot of characters being horribly flanderized. This is why many fans consider this to be the show's weakest season.
4. Some challenges didn't get executed very well, such as BFB 19, aka "How Loe Can You Grow?"
5. Plenty of unfair eliminations that are the result of viewers vote botting and using alt accounts to eliminate or save certain contestants. Post-split BFB and BFDI:TPOT are the most guilty of this, but perhaps BFB 22 "Who Stole Donut's Diary?" and BFDI:TPOT 9 "Outbreak at Stake" are the most guilty for this. In BFB 22, Taco was eliminated with one less vote than Flower and in BFDI:TPOT 9, all 6 members at the time of team "Are You OK?" went into a massive vote war that lead to a 72 vote difference between Eraser who got the most votes and Puffball who got eliminated with the least. Thankfully, starting with BFDI:TPOT 10 "Oneirophobe's Nightmare", voting has switched to Google Forms and this issue will likely not occur again, at least for BFDI:TPOT.
   • Teardrop's elimination in "Zeeky Boogy Doog" was a result of crew member Adam Katz's cousin telling her viewers on her MLP:FiM-related channel to go dislike Teardrop's video since her favorite contestant Coiny had the most dislikes at the time. Her audience not knowing what BFDI was, did that accordingly and Teardrop was eliminated despite also getting the prize.
6. The show went downhill during BFB post-split, but went back uphill with the Power of Two. Overall, here are some bad or mediocre episodes:
   • Yeah, Who? I Wanna Know (which was a terrible way to start Season 2)
   • Insectophobe's Nightmare 3
   • Zeeky Boogy Doog
   • Why Would You Do This On A Swingset
   • Fortunate Ben
   • Questions Answered
   • The Escape from Four (which ended Season 4a in poor note)
   • X Marks the Spot
   • How Loe Can You Grow?
   • A Taste of Space
   • Lots of Mud
7. While IDFB 1 "Welcome Back" episode is good and seemingly to be an improvement of BFDIA, it is disappointing that its the only episode in the season before it gets cancelled (presumably), despite how the creators didn't confirm IDFB was cancelled, and promise the next episode will happen. It hasn't (Though it might be going through development hell).
   • It also expected the viewers to sympathize with Match, who had JUST gotten put back into the TLC.
8. There are some characters that are very unlikable, whether they've since redeemed themselves or have gotten worse, like:
   • Book (BFB): Was extremely flanderized into an idiotic jerk through the first half of BFB. Thankfully, she realizes the error of her ways in BFB 13 and wouldn't fully redeem herself until BFDI:TPOT 10.
   • Coiny (BFDI): Only known for hating Firey. That was the extent of his personality until BFDIA.
   • David: Doesn't do anything in almost every challenge.
   • Donut (BFDIA): Somewhat rude and irritable. He got his comeuppance by being the first eliminated. However, he redeemed himself at the start of BFB.
   • Evil Leafy: She was only created to be filler and some plot device.
   • Firey (pre-split BFB): Very bland due to the large cast, but was given more attention in post-split. He was also flanderized in BFB 1-22 as he became immature.
   • Flower (BFDI-BFDIA): Was very unlikable, egotistic and mean in BFDI.
   • Gelatin (BFB): He became a troublesome and annoying little prick throughout much of the first half of BFB.
   • Ice Cube (BFDIA): Overly obsessed with getting revenge, even goes as far as to remove Pin's whole face in BFDIA 11 just for the time Pin told her not to go to Match's dance party.
   • Loser: Makes everyone act out-of-character and worship him. When he made his debut, it was absolutely unclear as to who he was or why he was famous and popular. That combined with his awful sounding voice made him a quick target for elimination.
   • Match (BFB): Same reason as Pencil. She even demoted Bubble to a "bemb", even though it was Bubble's idea to form an alliance to begin with.
   • Nonexisty: A joke character, and will never compete despite getting the second amount of votes to join BFDI:TPOT. Price Tag (3rd most) was picked over him because he doesn't exist.
   • Pencil (BFB): She was generally flanderized from a caring friend to a stereotypical teenager. Her beef with Bubble led to her elimination.
   • Profily: While funny, their plot line can be considered very dumb. Their debut in BFB 26 sparked controversy around 100 dollar RC's, as people assumed that their character was entitled to the same relevance as Profily, leading to the effective and eventual removal of RC's altogether.^{[citation needed]}
   • Rocky: His personality depends entirely on gross-out humor.
   • Saw (TPOT): Has been reduced to a gag screaming "eight".
   • Snowball (BFDI): Similar to Flower he was a massive jerk but slightly nicer, by BFDI:TPOT he redeemed himself completely and has a great friendship with Grassy.
   • Yellow Face (BFDIA 7-, BFDI:TPOT 7-8): Acts very rude and self-centered, and uses his products for selfish needs like stealing limbs from others. He also despises the color purple enough to mistreat Bomby when he was painted purple, and as a result he gets killed off in BFDIA 9, currently not recovered yet.
9. Gross-out humor, especially from Rocky.
   • Not to mention, they used vomit as food in a few instances, such as in BFDI:TPOT 6, where Rocky vomit's on The S!'s cereal, causing them to lose the challenge.
   • There are many instances with Barf Bag's barf in which it spills out or was to be used as food like in BFDI:TPOT 3.
10. The first season, while still visually good, uses cheaper flash animation, although it can be forgiven since the creators were only preteens at the time of the show's release.
    • The contestants' faces and limbs in the first few episodes of BFB were drawn by Satomi and animated pretty badly. Thankfully, starting on "Fortunate Ben", it began to improve quite quickly.
      • BFDI:TPOT 10 even lampshades this by making Book's nightmare animated like early BFB episodes.
11. Ever since Satomi was laid off from being a showrunner on BFDI:TPOT with Sam Thornbury taking her place from BFDI:TPOT 3 onwards, While trying his best, Sam Thornbury's writing in BFDI:TPOT felt weaker and disappointing, as not only did it repeat the flaws that post-split BFB had, but they have also forgotten a lot of story arcs for a while such as the Clock and Winner arc, Book's redemption arc, and of course, the Eggy and Teardrop arc. However, it began to improve starting in BFDI:TPOT 7, and addressed various criticisms that post-split BFB and BFDI:TPOT 3-6 and 8 had, which are bringing back unresolved story arcs and being more story and character-focused as initially promised.
12. Although it was nice to see BFDIA get revived after 10 years of hiatus, there are plenty of issues with it too:
    • The revival episodes of BFDIA (or Season 2b) are arguably considered weaker than the original series. The episodes try too hard to focus on a more comedy approach, leading to a lot of out-of-character moments and characters constantly stating the obvious, especially from Ruby.
    • While this did make him a more likeable character, Bomby's personality completely changed from a coward who doesn't talk much to being more confident and joyful, and he speaks in full dialogue, using his BFB-present voice actress, Satomi Hinatsu. Since the series takes place right after the original series, his sudden change in personality doesn't make the most sense, and nobody in-universe points it out.
    • It caused a few plot holes to be created. For instance, the viewer's votes are a lot higher than the votes that BFB had, due to the show's increasing popularity.
    • In the first revival episode "Well Rested", Needle says they are all permanent Yoyleland residents now due to the only recovery center being glued to the ground in Yoyleland. However, in "Meaty", they all of a sudden go back to Goiky and stay there. They continue to use the recovery center glued down in Yoyleland from Goiky suddenly without any problem with it's distance.
      • In "Meaty", a new recovery center atop the Eiffel Tower was revealed, even though it was previously made clear the only recovery center was glued down in Yoyleland.
    • It also tries to squeeze in as many references to older episodes as possible to the point where it becomes overwhelming.
    • Spongy is stated to have been eliminated four times as of BFB and Gelatin having never been voted out, leading to retcons as they have both been eliminated here. However, it also could be because Gelatin told Puffball Speaker Box not to inform Announcer on the elimination, or because BFDIA is being continued unofficially in-universe.
13. Some of the voice acting can get annoying, especially from Bubble during BFB.
14. For a show called "Battle For Dream Island", we never actually get to see Dream Island (or at least inside Dream Island). It's purpose is even destroyed when BFB came out.
    • Not to mention that BFDIA's prize is a Farm.

Trivia

• The show was inspired by Total Drama, hence why the first iteration of it was called “Total Firey Island,” an obvious reference to the name of Total Drama’s first season, “Total Drama Island (2007).”
• BFB was originally going to be called "Sloppy BFDI".
• The first episode in "The Power of Two", "You Know Those Buttons Don't Do Anything, Right?", was announced to release on January 9, 2021, according to the stinger in "Uprooting Everything". However, it was delayed a few hours due to glitches of the intro and ended up being released on January 10, 2021.
• There were 2 episodes of the season that had to be re-uploaded due to fatal errors in the originals.
  • The first was Episode 12 ("A Leg Up in the Race"). In the original, Golf Ball and Rocky were shown on the Another Name team, despite the fact that in the previous episode ("Lofty"), Golf Ball got eliminated and Rocky got moved to the Squishy Cherries, and neither of them should have been there. As a result, the episode was taken down, and a new version was uploaded, with the error fixed.
  • The second was Episode 20 ("Gardening Hero"). This episode was originally missing a 30-second portion that contained elimination/rejoin details and the recommended characters for that episode. The episode was later re-uploaded with that part of the episode included.
• On the intro of the 25th episode of BFDI, Eraser said that there might be a cool coincidence if you put the 1st spoken word of the first episode, the second word of the second episode, and so on all the way to the 25th spoken word of the 25th episode and made a message. The message says: "Yeah, what is it? Now I see you are taking the word with the place of the episode number. This is the message, no coincidence."
• It could possibly be made for kids due to containing no adult content aside from having slight gross-out humor as said in BQ#6.
• Each multi-part episode is denoted differently:
  • BFDI 1 denotes the parts with letters under the same episode number and the same title.
  • BFDIA 5 denotes the parts with letters under the same episode number, but each with different titles.
  • BFB 13, 14, and 15 denote the parts with different episode numbers and different titles.
• It started the whole Object Show community, which is nowadays rather toxic, and it did spawn several rip-offs.
• BFDIA 5b was a game instead of a episode. You play as Book (and later Match and Ice Cube) as you make your way through the inside of Evil Leafy. The game remains unfinished because of stopping at level 53/54, due to Cary getting busy, and Flash was discontinued in 2020.
• In December 2023, Cary revealed a prototype of BFDI called "Total Kid Island" featuring 12 middle school kids instead, with only 6 having as much as their heads ever being designed.

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