This season starts off an unspecified amount of time after the first season, maintaining the state of affairs from the final episode. After Leafy is chased off and stranded in Yoyleland, the living contestants and recommended characters gather around TV to find out which twenty of them (plus two hand-picked contestants) will be participating in the next show. Once the rules are established by means of a paper landing on Eraser's face, the contestants appoint TV as their new host and begin the competition.
BFDIA began on June 29, 2012, but suffered serious Schedule Slip, and has had no new episodes since Episode 5e in August 2013, despite Jacknjellify repeatedly stating it will come back. It finally did on September 1st, 2016... as a "third season", IDFB, which was also Cut Short after the first episode. On September 1st, 2023, it came back for real this time.
This show provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: The episodes released after the hiatus chronologically occur as if the show never got cancelled in the first place, yet contains references to Battle for BFDI and to more recent media.
- Anthropomorphic Food: Donut, Fries, and Gelatin are the first three food-based contestants introduced in-universe.
- April Fools' Day: Episode 11, "Lots of Mud," features multiple jokey and absurd situations, including Fries getting thrashed around by Jack from "How to Make a Difference", Pin losing her face, and most notably Flower becoming host, complete with updated title sequence.
- Beautiful Void: The Long-lost Yoyle City is a beautifully rendered city with no inhabitants.
- Blatant Lies: Match and Bubble disguise themselves as trees right in front of Firey's replacement speaker box's eyes (if it has any). In BFB 18 Bubble Gelatin and Lollipop all try to pretend to be Flower and the worst part is, Firey falls for it.
- A Bloody Mess: In episode 5a, Ruby receives a piece of Donut's dead body and calls his cherry-filling "blood", saying it tastes great.
- Brick Joke: On episode 5a, Book slaps Match because they drove past a library, saying "it's the rule", then mentions that she can reciprocate it if they pass a matchstick factory. In episode 5e, exactly that happens.
- The Bus Came Back: Puffball Speaker Box returns in BFDIA 8 after Firey's elimination made FSB unable to host.
- Chekhov's Gun: Leafy's map of Goiky helps her win the long jump contest in BFDI Episode 21. At the beginning of BFDIA, she uses it again when Pin and the others are chasing her.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In the first challenge, one team is several times as big as the other. Despite pulling in several more people later, the second team can only rival the first in challenges by means of a lucky elimination prize, a literal Cartoon Bomb, and a stick which can fly 2760 miles.
- Cut Short: After BFDIA was on hiatus for three years, some "deleted scenes" from the nonexistent sixth episode were released before the series was rebooted with IDFB, the third season. IDFB was also cut short with just a single episode before another year-long hiatus and reboot with BFB. Eventually, BFDIA itself would see the release of BFDIA 6 in September 2023 and continue production parallel to TPOT.
- Darker and Edgier: Episode 5c, "No More Snow!", is chock full of unusually dark deaths. First, Ruby accidentally kills Bubble by popping her, then Ice Cube and Match die when she presses the wrong button on Evil Leafy, and then Pencil gets vaporized when Ruby presses another wrong button. It seems like they will be brought back, but the Hand Powered Recovery Center was inside of Evil Leafy, so they're dead forever. Ruby then dies of sadness. W.O.A.H Bunch then falls off a cliff with a spiky bottom, so they press Spongy on the spikes. Everyone gets across, but not Needle. This leads to them killing her with fire, resulting in a pretty scary scene. To make matters worse, Fries, Rocky, Puffball, Golfball, Gelatin, Firey, and Tennis Ball had already died, leaving only 7 people left. They thankfully come back, but it's still dark.
- Death Is Cheap: Zig-zagged; the recovery centers are destroyed, so many characters who died last season cannot come back. Then Teardrop wins a Hand-Powered Recovery Center, leading to this trope happening again. However, it is then subverted again as the next contest is to go to Yoyleland, which is 2,763 miles away from the main grasslands area and the HPRC, meaning the deaths in episode 5a and 5c are not recovered. However, in 5c, Firey Speaker Box supplies the contestants with a Hand-Powered Hand-Powered Recovery Center Creator, and after many days of cranking a new HPRC is produced, which the contestants revive each other with and the FreeSmarters steal.
- Decoy Protagonist: In the intro of "Yeah, Who, I Wanna Know," Leafy is the center of attention as she runs away from a mob of former contestants. She uses her map to escape to Yoyleland, and Pin rips the map to trap her there.
- Deus ex Machina: In episode 5e, W.O.A.H. Bunch has only walked three miles and is about to lose. However, Coiny manages to throw a stick 2,760 miles and hits a button on the FreeSmart SuperVan, which picks up Needle. The rest of the team clings onto her, and they make it to Yoyleland, climb the mountain, and get second place.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Team No-Name loses the challenge of BFDIA 5 when Puffball lets her team get eaten by a giant fish because of her greed for prizes.
- Disproportionate Retribution: In BFDIA 4, Golf Ball kicks Fries into an incinerator because he called her factory a waste of time. Pencil suffers the same fate moments later, just for calling Golf Ball bossy.
- Eyedscreen: Parodied in BFDIA 1. Donut and Pencil stare at each other after all of the contestants go on one team except for Donut, who is on the other. When the camera cuts to Pencil, she morphs it into a vertical rectangle. Cue a montage of the contestants with black backgrounds in different shapes.
- Fake-Out Opening: Episode 4 has a "Battle For Nothing" opening when the contestants realize that Leafy stole Dream Island back in the first season.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In episode 2, Dora continues her explanation of why she eats islands and that she doesn't like David.
- Fun with Acronyms: The team "Wheel Ooze a Hole Bunch" is abbreviated to "W.O.A.H. Bunch".
- Then there's the Weak Trembling Fortress, or WTF for short.
- Gambit Roulette: W.O.A.H. Bunch wins the second challenge by using yoyleberry seeds, which were obtained by literally spinning the prize wheel and landing on the right spot.
- Heroic BSoD: Firey's elimination in BFDIA 8 causes his speaker box to become a crying mess, to the point where the contestants had to remove the knife from Puffball Speaker Box so she could host.
- Jump Scare: In episode two of season two. You know Evil Leafy's going to magically jump across the cliff and appear in front of the others and it will still make you jump.
- Killed Off for Real: Implied for several characters. BFDIA does not reintroduce the contestants killed in the first season's finale, implying this as their fate. Flower and Bubble are later recovered in the series, Flower even becoming a host, and as of Battle for BFDI, all of the contestants have been brought back to life.
- Nice Mean And In Between: Of FreeSmart, Bubble and Ruby are nice, Match and Pencil are mean, and Book and Ice Cube are in-between.
- No Indoor Voice: Yellow Face. Whenever he says something, he has to yell it, because sometimes no one can hear him when he speaks normal."HMM... I SURE DO!"
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: In BFDIA episode 4, a frozen Firey and Tennis Ball are shaken off the Eiffel Tower. Match catches Firey just before he hits the ground, while Tennis Ball shatters as he hits the ground.
- Ocular Gushers: In BFDIA 5c, Ruby gains these while she is crying.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Match and especially Bubble use Gelatin to disguise themselves as trees to be in the game as members of FreeSmart. Needless to say, despite the disguises being worn separately, Firey's replacement box fails to see through the disguise. Subverted at the end of the episode, when Match and Bubble are caught after their team wins and Gelatin is nowhere near.
- Reality Subtext: A day in real life is a day in-universe. During the three-year hiatus of BFDIA, the characters settle down in Yoyleland and go about their lives.
- Retcon and Sequel Reset: Implied. The beginning of BFDIA seems to undo the last part about Firey saving Leafy, and pretends that the rest of the cast still hates her. BFB 22 later explains why.
- Scenery Porn: Yoyle City, rendered in 3D.
- Serious Business: Coiny convinces Needle to switch teams in BFDIA episode 3 by threatening to call her "Needy". Three times. In a row. Lampshaded by Fries.
- Ship Tease: Coiny and Pin are, as Coiny puts it, "partners in crime" thanks to their many strategies in BFDIA. When Pin worries about Loser’s potential elimination and if the rest of her team can function without him, Coiny reminds her of her leadership skills and their excellent teamwork, successfully cheering her up.
- Shout-Out: BFDIA's fourth episode, "Zeeky Boogy Doog". It gets used in the episode proper as Firey's suggestion for the name of the new Dream Island; after he suggests it, Bomby falls into a nearby incinerator (with predictable results).
- Stock Audio Clip: Ice Cube and Needle speak entirely in recycled lines. Needle stopped doing so in BFDIA 5a, and Ice Cube got a new line in the same episode. After BFDIA 6, they'd start speaking normally thanks to having a new voice actress, although Ice Cube still uses some recycled lines.
- Take a Third Option: FreeSmart. Why switch to WOAH Bunch like a bunch of other contestants are doing, when you can make your own team instead?
- Time Abyss: Golf Ball is implied to be this, as she wrote the BFDI Tips and Tricks book 1 billion years ago. If not, it's likely Time Travel. But it could also be a joke.
- Title Drop: Pretty much every episode has one with the title of the episode (except for "Insectophobe's Nightmare 3").
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Of FreeSmart, Book, Ice Cube, and Pencil are the tomboys to Bubble, Match, and Ruby's girly girls, but in pairs, Book's the determined tomboy to Ruby's genki girly girl, Ice Cube's the vengeful tomboy to Bubble's free-spirited girly girl, and Pencil's the stern tomboy to Match's self-centered girly girl.
- Too Dumb to Live: Basically Team No-Name in "Well Rested." They choose to enter a hotel called "Evil Here Hotel" (the "Evil" part upside down), nobody notices any of the red leaf-shaped designs that look similar to Evil Leafy, and they decide to stare prolongedly at the mirror at the end of the hallway (which causes Evil Leafy to appear). Not only that, but they choose to hide in the rooms instead of running out of the hotel.
- True Companions: Teams in BFDI are often treated as, just that, teams, with theirs members acting like Vitriolic Best Buds at best. However, come BFDIA 5a, and while W.O.A.H. Bunch attempted to invoke this trope prior, we get a natural version of this trope in the form of FreeSmart. The Alliance from prior had been a little bit on the bureaucratic up until now, but to have a team of every alliance member, real member or substitute, as a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits who enjoy their time with each other is just touching. Each members' roles don't hurt, either. Firey and Gelatin joining the team, however, dampens it slightly as they're just here to take Ruby's Yoyleite and have no loyalty or connection with any member of FreeSmart besides Book disliking Firey.
- We Hardly Knew Ye:
- Donut was eliminated in the first episode.
- Dora only had three speaking roles during her time in BFDIA, and two of them were from before she became an official contestant.
