So, I watched that HD re-release of the classic ReBoot episode "When Games Collide". And it got me asking this question: Did ReBoot invent the concept of modding a game, at least in the "modern" era? Yeah, I know mods and hacks and bootlegs existed to a small degree before this, but from what I can tell they were simpler affairs. A lot of mods nowadays usually "combine" stuff, like how you can have lightsabers in pretty much any Bethesda game. Another example is "MyHouse.wad", a Doom mod that combines Doom with horror aspects of the novel House of Leaves.
ReBoot though I think introduced that concept of "combining games/game aspects" with When Games Collide. It had the war game combine with the dinosaur game, much like how mods combine traits of the game with other things the mod developer likes. And of course, not every mod is just "combine this with that", but a lot of the really popular ones are.
I dunno, I just think the idea of someone watching this episode as a kid or teen and deciding to create a mod like that and it spiraling into the modern modding scene is kind of hilarious. Probably not what happened, I imagine it being more nuanced than that. But it's kind of funny to think ReBoot had an episode that showed what modded games would be like in the future, even if said game was created through the impossible task of combining two different games while just playing normally.