The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy

The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy
Publisher	Taito AU: Mattel
Developer	Taito
Console	Nintendo Entertainment System
Genre	Platformer
Release date	NA: December 1991 EU: April 30, 1992 JP: August 7, 1992 AU: 1992

The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy is a platform video game based on The Flintstones animated series, developed and published by Taito for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991.

Play as Fred who must retrieve all of the pieces of Gazoo's time machine in order to save Dino and Hoppy from a mad scientist, who wants to put them in his zoo in the 30th century.

Characters

Legend
Character debut	Speaking debut	Ep. debut	No lines	Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character	Actor
Wilma Flintstone	Text
Barney Rubble	Text
Betty Rubble	Text
Great Gazoo	Text
Dino	Inaudible
Fred Flintstone	N/A
Hoppy	N/A
Doctor Butler	Text
Enemy	Text
Count Rockula	N/A
George Jetson	Text
Bamm-Bamm Rubble	N/A
Pebbles Flintstone	N/A

Organizations

• Spacely Space Sprockets (mentioned)

Locations

• Earth
  • Bedrock
  • Orbit City
    • Orbit City Zoo (mentioned)
    • Doctor Butler's lab

Vehicles

• Doctor Butler's time machine
• Great Gazoo's time machine

Development

Music

The sound composer was Y. Yamada and N. Yagishita.

Crew credits

Note: In the international releases, most of the first names in the staff roll are initials, while only their surnames and nicknames are listed in these releases. In the Japanese version, they were referred to by their full names, which were all changed in the other releases.

• Programmers: Misako Kawamura, Ki-Ichi Saito (Keiichi Saito)
• Graphic designers: T. Kodama (Toshihiko Kodama), M. Saito (Shin Saitoh), T. Kawaishi (Tohru Kaaishi), I. Matono (George Matono), Nisiyaman (Michael Nishiyama)
• Planner: Nishiyaman (Michael Nishiyama)
• Sound composers: Y. Yamada (Yasuo Yamada), N. Yagishita (Naoto Yagishita)
• Coordinators: H. Kajita (Hideki Kajita), H. Hiraiwa (Hiro Hiraiwa)

Behind the scenes

• Dino's mouth moved after being saved by Fred, giving the sense that he was yapping, although no sound is heard.
• In the international releases, special thanks are given to T. Horimoto, K. Bando, Y. Kanno, K. Ito, Y. Koga, Onijust, Y. Nakanishi, S. Yasuda, L. Stalmah, T. Kato, Y. Suzuki, S. Nakata, N. Kuroki, N. Nakaizawa in the credits. The Japanese version lacks these credits.

Errors

• Wilma and Betty know about Gazoo's existence, instead of just Fred, Barney, the babies, and the pets.
• Since George supposedly lives in 2062, which is in the 21st century, Doctor Butler claiming he comes from the 30th century is grossly inaccurate. However, the year George lives in has never been addressed on-screen in an episode or movie before.

Everlasting influence

• In 1992, an unliscenced bootleg known as 7 GRAND DAD was made after the game's release. It is notable for its strange fusion of both The Flintstones and the Mario series. Notable changes include the title screen, which has the bootleg's title along with a bootleg sprite of Mario next to Fred Flintstone on a star; and during gameplay, the replacement of Fred's head with Mario sprites from Super Mario Bros. 3 (though the latter change is not present in cutscenes and the basketball minigame).
  • The bootleg was spread onto the internet with the rise of the retro game emulation community in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While it was relatively unknown outside of the emulation circle, it achieved meme status in 2014, when Twitch streamer and YouTuber Vargskelethor Joel (or Vinesauce Joel) played the rom on his "Insane Mario Bootleg Games" stream. The bootleg, along with Joel's bewildered reaction to the title screen, became a running joke among the Vinesauce community, and it eventually spread to other game-related forums and communities across the Internet.
    • Starting in 2016, the parody YouTube channel SiIvaGunner repurposed the meme (along with the "(Meet) The Flintstones" theme) as a reference in thousands of "high quality rips." It was especially prevalent during the early years of the channel's existence, and is still made reference to every once in a while in its videos since.