It’s the stuff of science fiction, really. As strange as it might seem, I recall watching a genie movie with 90s comedian Sinbad in a film called Shazaam. And I’m not the only one. Hundreds of people worldwide are claiming to have seen this film, remembering the incompetent genie. However, in a weird twist of fate, it seems that film never existed. It’s as if all traces of the genie-ish comedy filled with college humour just vanished.
It’s eleven at night, and just before we’re about to sleep, I turn over to my wife and ask her if she ever saw a film called Shazaam starring Sinbad. Her immediate reaction was, “Yes, that old film with that genie… with that comedian… What’s his name? Sinbad.” That was exactly what I remembered, too.
Except, after doing some Googling, the film doesn’t exist. There is no Shazaam, and Sinbad never ever acted as a genie. Check his IMDB. Check Youtube. Check with Sinbad, real name David Adkins, himself. Sinbad never acted in a movie called Shazaam.
There is no footage. There are no records of it. There are no articles or movie reviews. Nothing.
So how do people worldwide have weird memories of this movie that never existed? Did it happen in a parallel universe, and we all have childhood memories of it? Is Philosopher Nick Bostrom right? Are we just living in a computer simulation? Is it just movie magic? Is Sinbad lying about Shazaam?
No, it appears to be yet another example of the “Mandela Effect”.
What is the Mandela Effect?
The “Mandela Effect” is an informal term for a collective false memory. The term was coined by a woman who discovered that she and hundreds of other people believed and remembered that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s. Nelson Mandela actually died in 2013, after serving as South Africa’s first black president and winning the Nobel Peace Prize (along with another former president, Frederik Willem de Klerk, who ended the system of segregation known in South Africa as apartheid during his time in power) in 1993 — all of which, of course, would have been impossible if he had already been dead a decade.
A simple example of the Mandela Effect is the case of Berenstain Bears. Many people remember the series being named Berenstein Bears instead, which is clearly incorrect. Another classic case is everyone remembering the cartoon series Looney Tunes as Looney Toons instead. No one knows if there was an unannounced name change or how this happened, but collectively, our brains can just fake letters in a word. There has been a lot of talk about the animation A Bug’s Life, where many people remember a scene that they can no longer find in the ants movie. The power of human memory, am I right? There are many more of these instances on the internet if you look up “Mandela Effect”, and there are many a subreddit dedicated to them if you are curious. Ironically, many of these cases come from the early ’90s and early 2000s.
Psychology has tried to explain the Mandela Effect through multiple studies in which they found that study participants, who weren’t relatives, somehow had the same false memories. Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist specialising in false memories, has gone on to try to clear up some of the confusion. She suggests that our memories can be altered by mere suggestion, which explains how a large group of people might have the same false memories if exposed to the same media sensation.
While this does make logical sense, it’s still an insane concept. People from all around the world remember Sinbad’s Shazaam, and it never existed.
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So why Shazaam?
There are several possible reasons why people may have mistakenly recalled Sinbad starring in a genie movie:
– The name Sinbad recalls memories of the comedian and a fictional sailor whose adventures involved genies.
– People might be confusing the actor for Shaquille O’Neal, who played a genie in the movie Kazaam.
– The actor hosted an afternoon of Sinbad movies on TNT.
The Conspiracy
There are countless testimonies, and many who believe that the film exists and that the actor had the film erased from history because of a bad theatrical release. Some have even gone as far as to say that the missing film results from time travel and distortion in our current timeline.
In a 2014 Q&A Interviewly.com session, Sinbad addressed the Shazaam conspiracy.
Q: SINBAD, THERE IS A LARGE RUMOR/CONSPIRACY GOING AROUND THAT YOU PLAYED A GENIE IN A MOVIE IN THE 90’S SIMILAR TO SHAQ IN KAZAAM. CAN YOU CONFIRM OR DENY THE EXISTENCE OF THIS SUPPOSED FILM? THANKS FOR THE AMA!
A (Sinbad): It was SHAQ SHAQ SHAQ. But we all look alike.
Over the years, many people have claimed that there is a conspiracy at play and that Sinbad’s Shazaam exists. Furthermore, some Redditors have offered a reward to anyone who has proof that the film exists. As of today, there is no concrete evidence that Shazaam was real.
Are we really just remembering Shaq’s Kazaam incorrectly?
