Budget cuts coming back stronger than ever before.
The twenty-ninth and penultimate episode of Battle for BFDI. After Teardrop's elimination, the Announcer reveals that BFB is cancelled due to the budget being too low, and the contestants (minus Taco) try and raise enough money to keep it going. Meanwhile, Taco interrogates the Announcer on why he came back, and why he wants the BFDI so badly.
Tropes include:
- Alternate Catchphrase Inflection:Announcer: Shush. Why do you think it's time for you to talk right now? Just say your catchphrase.
Bubble: (sadly) Yoylecake... - Art Shift: As the show's budget runs out, the art style begins to deteriorate, going from MS Paint to stopmotion papermation to the storyboard itself.
- Audience Surrogate: It's shown that if Two never showed up in BFB 16, Four would have just accepted Spongy and Loser escaping and let them rejoin the game. Fanny's reaction mimics most fans' when Spongy and Loser
got back into the show for no reason, changing the rules mid-season. The 39 other contestants that left for TPOT all quit the show alongside her for much the same reason. - Big "NO!": Done by Profily when everyone starts running out of ideas to save the show.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Announcer, Purple Face, and the final 15 notice the changes in animation as the budget runs out.
- Call-Back: According to his explanatory flashback, Announcer was caught by Pencil during the events of "The Long-lost Yoyle City", but when questioned he grabbed Gelatin and pulled him over his body, saying he was not the Speaker Box but a tree. This was how Match and Bubble managed to stay in the game after the former's elimination and the latter's disqualification.
- Chekhov's Gun: Flower's $50,000 she received from the Announcer last episode for her fashion line, which ends up being the only thing capable of saving BFB.
- Flanderization: The Announcer immediately goes on a spending spree as soon as he returns, whereas he never actually spent much money onscreen to justify the numerous budget cuts. Played with in that his personality hasn't been altered to spend more, he was just trying to tank the show's budget into cancellation so he could take the BFDI for himself.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Hostile Show Takeover almost succeeds due to the show's budget running out, but the money that Announcer gave to Flower in the previous episode saves the show from being cancelled after the cast's plan to raise money backfires.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When Taco says that Announcer is wasting the show's budget, Blocky retorts that she only thinks he's wasting their money. Moments later, the Announcer tells the contestants that he spent three million dollars for a make-over for their bus, which is now made out of gold.Blocky: MY ARGUMENT IS FALLING APART!
- In Spite of a Nail: When the contestants are coming up with ideas to save the show when the budget begins running out, Gelatin suggests a scenario where Two never showed up and BFB 16 continued like normal. Except, when Four allows Spongy and Loser to rejoin the game, the same 40 contestants that left BFB for TPOT still end up quitting due to Four's mid-game rule change, rendering the entire scenario pointless.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Like Match and Bubble before him, when questioned about his presence in BFDIA 5e on the summit of Yoyle Mountain, Announcer pulls Gelatin over his head and claims to be a tree, complete with tree sounds.
- Piano Drop: A flying slice of carrot cake tries to drop a piano on Flower, but misses.
- Reaching Between the Lines: Flower saves the show by sticking $50,000 into Announcer's laptop, restoring the animation back to normal.
- Retraux Flashback: Some of the flashbacks are animated in the style of past seasons.
- The Reveal:
- Announcer reveals several key plot moments in this episode, such as the fact that he ran BFDIA behind the scenes, and the fact that Four and X stole BFDI from him and he returned to take back what was rightfully his.
- The fact that Four sinking into the desert might not have actually been as fatal as everyone thought.
- Wham Episode: BFB is canceled due to the budget being so low, but ends up getting uncanceled thanks to Flower. We also learn that Announcer hosted BFDIA in secret.
- Wham Line: When the Announcer explains to Taco why he returned to earth:Announcer: It looked like an end to BFDI, but I wanted it to continue, budget or not. I fixed myself back up and returned to Earth.
Taco: Wait, you were on earth all along?
Announcer: Be quiet, I'm telling my story. I wanted BFDI to continue. I contacted TV to put together the voting for a new season.
