Battle for Dream Island is an American animated reality TV viewer-voting web series created by Michael Huang 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, and is currently airing its fifth season. The entire series is uploaded on YouTube, on the channel jacknjellify.
Outside of web episodes, the series has expanded into web shorts, web games (such as BFDIA 5b), and merchandise (such as plushes and a physical book).
About
The show's first season, simply named Battle for Dream Island, ran from January 1, 2010, to January 1, 2012, on the show's 2nd birthday, and tells a story of twenty, later twenty-one, inanimate, anthropomorphic objects living in a fictional 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 luxurious 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 the three was directly voted. This contestant was declared the winner and gets to choose who is to be allowed onto the island with them.
The show's second season, Battle for Dream Island Again, ran from 2012 to 2013 and follows a similar format to the first season, but with several new characters, along with most of the original cast. It also expands the lore of the series. It was canceled early due to monetization issues on YouTube.
The show returned for a third season in 2016 after a long hiatus. The season was named IDFB, and picked up roughly 1,000 days after the events of the final season two episodes, where the objects are no longer competing and are now living in the fictional Yoyle City. The season was going to add more lore to the show and shows how the objects adapted to their new lives. It currently only has one episode — "Welcome Back". The season was put on hold due to the creators attending college. It is also possible that IDFB was dropped completely in favor of its follow-up season, BFB, as stated by Cary in his BFB 1 reaction video:
"Who really liked IDFB? It was pretty good, but it had no direction, no competition. We had some plans for the storyline and the lore to expand, but this is better".
The fourth season, the aforementioned Battle for BFDI, ran from November 3, 2017, to April 9, 2021, and boasts a cast of 65 contestants, both new and old, once again competing for a reward, A BFDI. The art style is more loose and simple, allowing episodes to be released either bi-weekly or tri-weekly, with longer waiting times observed for breaks and holidays. The season was hosted by Four and X until "Four Goes Too Far", when it was hosted by Donut until "This Episode is About Basketball" when X returned. Four also returned in "Enter the Exit". The season split into two, with 40 of the 54 remaining contestants switching to The Power of Two. The season was renamed to Battle for BFB and had a cast of 14 (later 15) contestants. After getting to the final three, Announcer replaces Four due to budget cuts, leaving X and the remaining BFB contestants. In the final episode, everyone resolved their conflicts. Thirty episodes have been released.
A new season, Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two, hosted by Two, was announced in "The Escape from Four" to start on January 9, 2021. However, it was delayed a few hours due to glitches of the intro and ended up being released on January 10, 2021. The season has 42 contestants (the original forty plus two debuters) battling for the Power of Two.
Future
- Main article: Season 6
The possibility of a sixth season of Battle for Dream Island was first discussed in "The Secret Behind BFB's Split". After Cary Huang states that one year after Battle for BFB ends, he would have the opportunity to do a new season that changes something.
Currently, not much is known about this season, except that it may be "a new style of season", or having "a new art form".
Cary Huang had mentioned in "CARY REACTS TO BFB 20" on Humany that he wanted to return to the art style that Battle for Dream Island, Battle for Dream Island Again, and IDFB had. It is possible that this season may return to that art style.
On August 7, 2020, the season was further discussed by Cary Huang on HTwins Central, stating that he wants to work on a sixth season, but nothing has been decided, but likely will when the time comes.[1]
Trivia
- The first characters shown in BFDI (on YouTube) are Match and Pencil.
- Battle for Dream Island is the first object show on YouTube ever created.
- BFDI also stands for Blocky's Funny Doings International, an in-universe prank company.
- It also stands for Buried Forest, Deciduously Insulated, a location in BFB.
- As of January 1, 2022, BFDI is 12 years old. It will turn 13 years old on January 1, 2023.
- Each multi-part episode is denoted differently:
- Battle for Dream Island was picked as a nominee for the Cartoon Crave Awards, a hub dedicated to cartoon news, as "Best Web Series" among 3 others. On January 22, 2022, BFDI won the award for "Outstanding Web Series"[2] by a landslide with 63% of the votes.[3]
- Jacknjellify made a video regarding this, asking fans if they could vote for BFDI.
- BFDI was also voted the second most favorite show in general in the Cartoon Crave Awards, behind The Owl House and ahead of Helluva Boss and Amphibia.[4] Interestingly, the BFDI image for the tweet was an unofficial one. It was the thumbnail to a video called "BFDL 3A / Resign Ups 1" by gopokemon121.
- There are sixty seven participants in Battle For Dream Island so far:
- The seven contestants who have qualified for every season: Coiny, Golf Ball, Ice Cube, Needle, Rocky, Pin, and Tennis Ball.
- There are eight contestants who qualified for four seasons: Bomby, Book, Firey, Fries, Nickel, Pencil, Spongy, and Yellow Face.
- There are twelve contestants who qualified for three seasons: Bubble, Donut, Eraser, Flower, Gelatin, Leafy, Match, Pen, Puffball, Ruby, Snowball, Teardrop, and Woody.
- There are twenty-five contestants who qualified for two seasons: Barf Bag, Basketball, Bell, Black Hole, Blocky, Bottle, Cake, Clock, Cloudy, David, Dora, Eggy, Fanny, Foldy, Gaty, Grassy, Lightning, Marker, Naily, Pie, Pillow, Remote, Robot Flower, Saw, Tree, and TV.
- There are thirteen contestants who qualified for one season: 8-Ball, Balloony, Bracelety, Firey Jr., Liy, Lollipop, Loser, Price Tag, Profily, Roboty, Stapy, Taco, and Winner.
Gallery
See also
References
| Seasons of Battle for Dream Island (template) |
|---|
| Main series: Battle for Dream Island • Battle for Dream Island Again • IDFB • Battle for BFB • Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two • Season 6
Spinoffs: ABCDEFG • B.A.G.U.E.T.T.E. • BFDI Mini-Season - "Marbles" • Ten Words of Wisdom Non-canon: Battle for Permission to Meet 10 |
