‘BFDI’: Online series continues to soar

It began with a maths assignment and a folded piece of printer paper with cartoons on it. This was how twin brothers Michael and Cary Huang from California set off on the path to creating Battle for Dream Island (BFDI). It’s a YouTube animated series that has kept millions of kids, teenagers and even some grown-ups tapping to their screens for over a decade.

It was an unlikely beginning. “My brother Cary had to create a fake catalogue for an algebra class in 2009,” said Michael Huang. “Inside it was a comic about how rock, paper and scissors, the hand gesture game, could be improved. He replaced them with water, sponge and fire.”

The idea simmered, and eventually, characters became a cast. The cast became a story. And the story became a show. “We were travelling when we decided to animate some of these comics,” Michael explained. “I was really getting into digital animation at the time. It made sense to combine that with Cary’s characters. That’s how BFDI was born.”

Unlikely beginnings

In the early days, Cary was also drawing his own version of a Cartoon Network show called Total Drama Island on folded paper booklets. He called it Total Fiery Island. It was, in a way, pastimes that foreshadowed it all. Michael read film at the University of California Berkeley. Cary graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science. The two share creative DNA as much as they do actual DNA.

Watch: BDFI’s debut episode

As the show debuted and episodes rolled out, audiences liked the silliness of BFDI, the unpredictability, and the unapologetic embrace of the somewhat bizarre. It was a game show parody, but also something a bit more whacky and smarter. An animated contest where characters like Leafy and Firey jostled for popularity, but where the humour teetered on slapstick of the Charlie Chaplin variety.

A willingness to be totally goofy

“Cary is the heart of BFDI,” said Michael. “He’s always had this willingness to be completely goofy, and it stuck,” he shared. “Even as we got older, through high school and college, we kept making episodes. That same tone became part of the show’s identity. It’s also been tricky to bring in additional writers because of that. But recently, we’ve hired two new writers who now also direct. They really understand it. One of the two even moved to Los Angeles to work with us.”

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While many children’s series end up licensed to streaming platforms or cable channels, BFDI never left YouTube. The twins embraced online distribution instead, long before media companies were betting on creators who recorded from their bedrooms. “Some people compare us to shows like Cocomelon or Blippi, but I’d say our closest counterpart is creator channel LankyBox,” Michael said. The two channels recently agreed to work together and react, online, to one another’s content. “There’s this whole ecosystem of creators doing things outside the traditional model. And it’s working.”

Old school animation appeal

BFDI’s animation is almost old-school in its appeal. There are no glossy Pixar finishes or ultra-detailed Disney characters here. The style is simple, colourful, and often deliberately rough around the edges. Michael isn’t convinced that realism has anything to do with what makes animation good. “I remember watching that Lion King remake a few years ago,” he said. “It looked real but didn’t feel like anything. What we’ve seen in the past few years, especially with Spider-Verse, is that people actually want more stylised, more imaginative animation. Something different.”

And BFDI has become more than just a show. Fans are building games on Roblox and Fortnite based on the series. Some are even livestreaming play-throughs and remixing characters.

“There’s a whole world of fan-made stuff on Roblox,” said Michael. “That connection with the audience is something we haven’t explored fully, but we want to.”

For the first ten years, YouTube ad revenue funded the brothers. That changed in 2019. “We started exploring merchandising. Plush toys, silicon lamps, the works,” Michael said. “We didn’t go through the agencies most creators use. We found our own manufacturers, did fulfilment ourselves. Also, we didn’t even know people outsourced that kind of thing.” Now add live events to the mix, and BFDI is now running a tight and succesful media operation out of Los Angeles, with a full team and a growing audience of millions.

From pause, to play again

A pause caused by the brothers’ respective studies is now back in play before expansion, Michael said, and there’s some unfinished business. “A lot of fans remind us that we haven’t finished Season Two or Season Three,” he said. “We made one episode of Season Three and then skipped to Four. Right now, we just want to finish what we started. No large-scale musicals, no other major spin-offs, not yet. Just wrapping up the story properly.” Once that’s done, the sky’s the limit for this popular show that’s embedded itself into global popular culture.

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