About

7 Grand Dad, also known simply as Grand Dad, is an infamous bootleg video game made in 1992 from a pirated version of the Nintendo Entertainment System game The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy. Due to the rather absurd nature of the game, it primarily became a recurring joke on Vinesauce Joel streams and later SiIvaGunner videos in 2014 and 2015.

Early History

Due to the nature of the subject, information regarding the origin of Grand Dad is sparse and relatively unknown. It is known that the sprite-work for Grand Dad himself originated in Dian Shi Ma Li (Television Mari/Fortran), an unlicensed Famicom gambling game released in Taiwan around 1989.^[1] Three years later, various unrelated Chinese Famicom cartridge was distributed, containing an edited version of The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy game called GRAND DAD 3M 原始瑪莉VII (the latter translated to "Original Mary 7" shown below).^[2]

Additionally, the bootleg arrived in Russia sometime in the mid-1990s as an "official" Dendy game called Super Mario 7.^[3] Lastly, 7 Grand Dad is known to have been published by a Taiwanese company under the name of JY Company (seen below).^[4]

Spread

As with Dian Shi Ma Li, Grand Dad was eventually spread online as an NES file (as with many other unofficial and official NES titles) around 1996. Throughout the late '90s to the early 2000s, It proved initially infamous within the bootleg community for its rather simple alterations to the source material. This would lead to an eventual lack of interest, putting the bootleg once more into obscurity

Grand Dad would not be popularized again until September 4, 2014, when Twitch streamer Vargskelethor (better known as Joel from Vinesauce ) stumbled across the game in a bootleg Mario 7-in-1 multicart while streaming pirated NES games (seen below).^[5]

Following Joel's comedic reaction to the bootleg, interest in Grand Dad slowly increased again and became a recurring joke, particularly within the Vinesauce community. Grand Dad would also become a recurring joke on the YouTube channel SiIvaGunner (previously known as "GiIvaSunner") by sneaking and mixing the Flintstones theme into particular video game tracks, as well with other users mixing clips of Joel saying the words "Grand Dad" and "Flintstones" (often written as "FLEENTSTONES" in reference to his accent, examples show below, left and right).^[6]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References