7 GRAND DAD

"I'm confused. Why do people always comment 'Grand Dad' on my uploads? Are they trying to tag their grandfathers? That's not how it works."

- @giivasunner, Feb 26, 2016.

7 GRAND DAD is a meme frequently featured on SiIvaGunner's channel. It is the most prevalent meme of them all, with several thousand videos on the channel making reference to it if all its sub-memes are counted.

Origins
see Meet the Flintstones and Grand Dad for more info.

7 GRAND DAD is a Mario-themed bootleg of the 1991 NES game The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy. It was most likely created by the Taiwanese bootleg publisher J.Y. Company in 1992.

There are very few differences between the two games. The most notable difference is the title screen, which is completely changed. The only parts that remain from the original title screen are the blue background, the salmon font color of the game title, a flashing white text saying "PUSH START BUTTON !", and a picture of Fred Flintstone in a gold star (which was originally a part of the Hanna Barbera Super Stars logo). The title screen music, a remix of "Meet the Flintstones", stays the same as well. The rest is completely changed. The title and logo are replaced with a large salmon "7", a picture of a bootleg Mario recolor (later nicknamed Grand Dad) with the character's head overlaid by the Fred Flintstone star, and a salmon "GRAND DAD" in a curious square-ish font. The credits at the bottom of the screen are replaced with white text saying "1992 1". The "1", commonly mistaken to be a bootlegger's nickname, is in fact a level select which can be used by pressing the "Select" button, which causes the number to go up (until 5). This level select was implemented by the bootleggers and wasn't featured in the original game.

During gameplay, the head of Fred Flintstone's sprite is replaced with the head of Super Mario from Super Mario Bros. 3. However, during cutscenes and the basketball minigame, Fred appears unedited, and he is always called by his real name. Finally, the ending credits are altered to say, "PRESENTED BY XXXXX" instead of "PRESENTED BY TAITO". The rest of the final credits are unchanged.

The game was originally distributed in its own bootleg cart, under the title 原始瑪莉 VII (GRAND DAD 3M). Later, it was included in a Russian Mario 7-in-1 Dendy multicart, as ''7. MARIO 7''.

Vinesauce Joel
7 GRAND DAD (specifically, the rom for the Mario 7-in-1 multicart) originally spread around the Internet with the rise of the retro game emulation community during the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, it was still virtually unknown outside the emulation community until September 4, 2014, when popular Twitch streamer and YouTuber Vinesauce Joel played the game as part of his "Insane Mario Bootleg Games" stream. People found Joel's reaction to 7 GRAND DAD funny and it became a running joke among the Vinesauce community, eventually spreading to other game-related forums and communities across the Internet.

SoundCloud
Shortly after Vinesauce Joel's stream, dj fruitsnacks created a mashup of the title screen music and the song "Levels" by Avicii. According to him, this was the first use of 7 GRAND DAD as a meme. Following that, dj fruitsnacks and a few other people on SoundCloud created more mashups using the song, but "most of them were pretty bad," according to Chaze the Chat. In response to the many sub-par 7 GRAND DAD mashups on SoundCloud, Chaze and several other people in a Discord server would create mashups and remixes of "Meet the Flintstones" that had more effort put into them to ironically poke fun at the low-quality mashups and ultimately upset their friends.

Rips
7 GRAND DAD is SiIvaGunner's most prominent meme. Interestingly, references to the bootleg itself are quite rarely featured in SiIvaGunner rips. Instead, it's usually referenced via one or both of its 2 sub-memes: Other, less prominent references to 7 GRAND DAD in SiIvaGunner rips include:
 * Meet the Flintstones: The iconic Flintstones theme tune, a version of which was featured on 7 GRAND DAD 's title screen. In SiIvaGunner rips, it usually replaces the melody of a video game track using that game's soundfont. Less often, the version from 7 GRAND DAD, using the emulated original instruments, is mashed up onto a track.
 * Joel's reaction to 7 GRAND DAD: Vinesauce Joel's reaction to the bootleg, most notably his famous "GRAND DAD! FLEENTSTONES?" exclamation. In rips it's usually sampled and mashed up onto a track.
 * Grand Dad: The Mario lookalike character featured on 7 GRAND DAD 's title screen. He is used to represent and personify the 7 GRAND DAD meme within the SiIvaGunner lore.
 * The Flintstones: A few rips feature references to the actual The Flintstones TV show, which can be also considered an indirect reference to 7 GRAND DAD, given the channel's context.
 * The number seven: As a reference to the title of the game, the number 7 can found littered throughout SiIvaGunner content. This is often done just for theming or as an Easter egg rather than the actual main joke, though it's also not uncommon to see the number 7 played up as a "hilarious joke" with phrases like "the funny 7" being used.

Trivia

 * The last stage of this game features a crossover with The Jetsons.
 * Interestingly, there exists a completely unrelated Super Mario Bros. 3 ROM hack called Blue Mario Bros. 3 that features character sprites from The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy.