This Episode Is About Basketball

Throw balls into your team's basket to weigh it down. When it touches the buzzer, you're safe! Last team to do it loses.

This Episode Is About Basketball is the 9th episode of Battle for BFDI, and the 40th episode overall of the Battle for Dream Island series. It was released on April 6, 2018.

Cold Open
Marker wants Stapy to play "Eat the Dirt" with him. Stapy instantly agrees, but after realising what Marker said, he backs out. Coiny enters the scene and serves Marker dirt cake on a plate, which causes the intro to start because he raised his hand.

Before Cake at Stake
Clock is ticking when suddenly he rings, like he has done in previous episodes. Dora also "rings". Stapy asks Donut if it meant it was time for Cake at Stake, but Donut interrupts him rudely, finishing his sentence.

Cake at Stake
While Donut is hosting Cake at Stake, Gelatin and Lightning are attempting to steal some of Fries's fries. Donut then notices Gelatin and Lightning, and they panic. Gelatin bites the yellowed fries and pulls them out, revealing X. X tells them that he ran away when he and Four were being multiplied by zero (Donut). He hid in various places, like under the basket that used in "Four Goes Too Far" and the jawbreaker fragment Ruby was playing with in "The Liar Ball You Don't Want".

Upon seeing that X was present, Donut gives X the responsibility of doing Cake at Stake. However, X reads the votes incorrectly, saying that Stapy was eliminated first. Stapy asks Puffball to make sure Foldy and Bell get their cakes, and he leaves. X then realizes he read the votes backwards, and Eraser believes this as an April Fools joke.

Puffball then breaks Stapy's promise and eats Foldy and Bell's cakes. Nickel then asks Puffball to save some for him, and thanks her when she spits cake out.

The Challenge
Donut is about to announce the ninth contest when suddenly X interrupts him and asks if he could choose the contest. Donut agrees, but then X experiences difficulties when coming up with the challenge. But when he looks around and sees baskets and balls, he decides that the challenge should be "basketball." Barf Bag asks X if he could clarify what the challenge actually is, and then X says the challenge was to press the team buzzers used in the previous episode by weighing down his baskets.

Blocky throws Basketball and Tennis Ball in the basket to weigh it down and lower it, just like Tennis Ball's trebuchet did in "Getting Teardrop to Talk", causing to be safe. X looks upon this questionably, but accepts it after Blocky explains that he did throw " balls" into the basket.

Meanwhile, doesn't have any luck throwing the balls. Gaty wishes that there was someone who specialized in throwing.

Firey throws a ball, only to drop it. Coiny picks it up and throws it. He misses and hits Cloudy's window again.

Woody attempts to throw a ball, but is too scared to do so. Nickel says that his team should give up. Cloudy tries to convince David to throw, since he and Woody are the only ones on with arms.

Yellow Face tells Marker to play "Toss the Balls." Marker agrees, and then throws the balls in the basket, weighing it down and pressing the buzzer. This causes to be safe.

Meanwhile, Gelatin is about to tell his team they should explode Bomby so that the balls would go into the basket, but then they all look at him, making Gelatin nervous and saying Bomby should throw the balls into the basket.

Snowball throws a ball at the propeller of 's basket, making it malfunction and dropping onto the buzzer. X gets suspicious, but he becomes scared when Snowball gets angry. This makes safe.

Meanwhile, is telling Tree to throw, even though he's inside Bottle. Pie tells her team they're forgetting something. Pen then throws a bunch of balls into Black Hole.

X announces that, , and are safe, leaving it to  and. Cloudy encourages Woody to throw, which he does. But then throws a bunch of balls into the basket, causing them to be safe. Nickel asks if they were supposed to throw more than one ball. X says that he should pay more attention, but Nickel points out X wasn't very clear.

Stinger
Donut walks past X, telling him “Good job,”. X then puts on a confident expression.

Results

 * 1st:
 * 2nd:
 * 3rd:
 * 4th:
 * 5th:
 * 6th:
 * 7th:
 * 8th: (lost)

Credits

 * Writing: Satomi Hinatsu, Kenzie Bryant
 * Animation: Satomi Hinatsu, Kenzie Bryant, Caedmon Johnson
 * Editing: Satomi Hinatsu
 * Audio Editing: Satomi Hinatsu, Amor Boretto, Maroue Reus
 * Music: Michael Huang
 * Additional Character Art: TopHatTheHat, TheEpicJames

Voice Acting
Contestants that are currently dead/eliminated are not present.


 * Michael Huang: Woody, Donut, Snowball, Coiny, Cloudy, Robot Flower, Puffball, Eraser, Blocky, Bubble, Pen, Firey, Book, Fries, Yellow Face, Flower, Golf Ball
 * Cary Huang: Spongy, Tennis Ball, Ruby, Pin, Match, Grassy, X, Marker
 * Satomi Hinatsu: Saw, Bottle, Bomby, Black Hole, Gaty, Firey Jr., Basketball, Clock, Fanny
 * Kenzie Bryant: Needle, Ice Cube, Barf Bag, Cake
 * Sam Lee: Pie, Stapy, Lollipop
 * Cindy Jiang: Pillow
 * Katherine Sun: Eggy
 * Sabrina Barba: Lightning
 * Adam Katz: Nickel
 * Graham Taylor: Gelatin
 * Thomas Chick: Tree

Trivia

 * Before the official thumbnail was released, the original thumbnail features the second most contestants, after Four Goes Too Far.
 * Ballers is used during this episode, which may be a joke.
 * The credits for this episode were unique in that...
 * This is Kenzie Bryant's first animation credit.
 * The credits now have a new "Audio" section.
 * This is the third episode not written by Cary Huang.
 * This is the second episode written by Kenzie Bryant.
 * This is the first episode to be written by Satomi Hinatsu but not Cary or Michael Huang.
 * This is the first episode not animated by Michael Huang.
 * This is the first episode where neither of the Huang Twins had any involvement in outside of the music and voice acting.
 * Like the BFDI schedule, this episode comes out a month after the previous episode.
 * This is the first and only episode in BFB so far that was released 4 weeks after the last episode.
 * For the first time, Cary Huang says 's name, making him the 3rd voice actor to do so.
 * Coiny raises his hand in this episode for the intro.
 * This is the first time a team has lost three times.
 * This is the fifth episode to have a character's name in the title, following Are You Smarter Than a Snowball?, Getting Teardrop to Talk, Fortunate Ben, and Four Goes Too Far.
 * However, it wasn't literally about Basketball. It was about X's baskets and balls.
 * This is the shortest BFB episode by far, clocking in at 7 minutes.
 * The shortest before this was "Lick Your Way to Freedom".
 * This is also the first BFB episode to be under 10 minutes.
 * This is the final episode with a single digit episode number.
 * This makes BFB the second season to pass single digit episode numbers. The first being Battle for Dream Island.
 * Book's voice is somewhat different in this episode.
 * It's different in that it's lower than usual, so it may be a mistake.
 * Foldy is the only remaining BFDI APPISIOTE 225555555!!!!! contestant and the only newbie still in the show.
 * This episode, along with Fortunate Ben, are the only episodes where all of the contestants up for elimination received over 1,000 votes.
 * Balloony, Remote, Taco, Naily, Bell, Foldy and 8-Ball are currently dead, and it is unknown if, when, or how they will come back either.
 * Balloony may not be orange anymore if he is recovered.
 * None of them were revived during this episode.


 * 's first elimination is similar to 's.
 * Both have the only original contestants that were in the Squishy Cherries and never competed in BFDIA.
 * Every contestant also received over 1,000 votes. This is the second time this happened as every member of Death P.A.C.T got over 1,000 votes in episode 5.
 * Alike to BFB 5's elimination, it marks the elimination of a newbie.
 * In the episode X returns and takes over as an host, replacing Donut.
 * But, Four is most likely not going to be present in this episode, because he is multiplied by 0 (Donut).
 * However, Marker may have the ability to revive Four due to what he did in Today's Very Special Episode.
 * The music of the intro can be heard during Death P.A.C.T's scene throwing their balls.
 * This is the first time the Moon is visible during the day.
 * This is the third time is up for elimination.
 * This is the fourth time in a row a male is eliminated.
 * This is the first time places 1st.
 * This is the second time an episode had the word "episode" in it, following Today's Very Special Episode
 * This is the first episode of BFB where Golf Ball has no lines.
 * This means that the only contestants that have spoken in every episode up to BFB 9 are Donut, Pen, and Book.
 * Robot Flower, TV, Ruby, Match, Bubble, Flower, Eggy, Cake and Saw are absent in the episode.
 * However, Robot Flower, TV and Ruby appeared in flashbacks.
 * Viewer Flyless Kyle made a theory that the fumes of 8-Ball were gonna make Saw become an 8-Ball. This theory was confirmed false.
 * Flyless Kyle renamed the wiki page I Was A Teenage 8-Ball, resulting in the private editing to be added.
 * This is the second time someone is eliminated but isn't forced somewhere. (the first being BFB 6). (In BFDIA 5a, Match was originally safe from the TLC, but was sent there in BFDIA 5e.)

Continuity references

 * In the beginning, when Dora was saying tick-tock before the Cake at Stake starts, reference to Questions Answered.
 * Firey can't throw a ball to the basket similar to Getting Teardrop to Talk where Firey can't throw the yoyle seeds.
 * This is also similar to that episode, when Coiny accidentally throws yoyle seeds at Cloudy's window, breaking it.
 * Marker tossed the dirt after tossing the balls into the basket.
 * When tossing the dirt he digs into a hole, and Fries tells him he can stop now. This is a reference to Get Digging where Fries tells the contestants who are all digging deep holes that they could stop.
 * Coiny has a dirt cake from BFDI 4.
 * Gaty wished there was someone who specialized in throwing. She could be referring to Taco. If that's the case, it could be referencing how Taco made a throw to Cloudy's pot in Getting Teardrop to Talk.
 * Nickel says that his team should give up, possibly referencing him saying the same thing in No More Snow.
 * Woody once hesitates to throw a ball while members on his team encourages him to just like on Total Firey Island/Book 4: Elimination Volleyball!.
 * But this time he gets determined to throw it.
 * When Coiny's ball breaks Cloudy's window again, Pin's blueberry seeds from Getting Teardrop to Talk can be seen breaking out of it's pot as a bush.

Goofs/Errors

 * X appears to have shrunken to a smaller size compared to previous episodes, even appearing much smaller than Blocky.
 * It is unknown whether this is intentional or not.
 * Book and Puffball's voices seem to be lower-pitched than in previous episodes.
 * X turns black and white and compresses himself in a brief frame at 3:26.
 * This could be an exit of screen effect.
 * Book's voice is abnormally lower in this episode.
 * Clock's hour hand is layered over his eye.
 * At 6:05, an obscure part of one of Pen's eyes isn't colored.
 * At 1:35, Ruby's arms are missing.
 * Choo Choo the Train does not get hit with the ball.

Controversy
Some people think that Donut gets too much screen time.

Some people criticized this episode for being too short and having lost again, similar to Fortunate Ben.