Sinbad created a fake version of that ’90s genie movie people always think he was in
For the last year or so, passionate arguments have been breaking out on the internet over the most important of topics.Things like politics. Healthcare. Whether Sinbad was ever in a movie where he played a genie. That last one has been a frequent point of contention on places like reddit, where people have loudly argued that the prolific stand-up and actor was in a non-existent movie called Shazaam in the early ‘90s.
The Shazaam Question has gotten to the point where there’s now a Snopes article dedicated to it, refuting the idea that the comedian ever played a djinn or other magical, wish-granting creature in a VHS feature film. (The assumption is that people are conflating Sinbad’s genie-adjacent stage name with Shaquille O’Neal’s rapping genie movie Kazaam.)
Refuted, that is, until now, because College Humor just posted a new video purporting to be footage from Shazaam, complete with Sinbad in a shiny purple costume. The video’s actually a lot more clever than its obvious April Fools origins might lead you to believe, though: It’s littered with references to the Mandela Effect, the human tendency to create shared incorrect memories. Curious George, Monopoly, Froot Loops, The Berenstain Bears, and even Nelson Mandela himself—all of which have been subject to the effect—all pop up in the video. But don’t worry: “We have our memories,” says the little girl who ends up releasing Shazaam. “They’re real. No one can take that from us.”