Shazaam explained: The internet remembers a Sinbad movie that never actually happened
Touchstone Pictures/NetflixIt’s making the rounds again. A Shazaam movie starring Sinbad that doesn’t actually exist. Whether it’s the Mandela effect or a simple mix-up with a similar movie, many people remember a film that never came out.
Every few years, there’s a surge of folks on the internet trying to find Shazaam. No, not the superhero movie about a boy hero, a feature starring Sinbad, real name David Adkins.
They claim to remember scenes from the non-existent movie where the actor and comedian Sinbad plays basketball and grants wishes.
Memory is a fickle, easily influenced thing. Turns out, there’s another film that may be the key to this mystery.
The Shazaam movie explained
People remember Shazaam as a fantasy movie that starred Sinbad as a genie. This never came out. People are likely misremembering another real film.
Unlike the debunked Heisenberg movie or fake Golden Girls reboot, this rumor wasn’t started by disinformation spreading Facebook pages for engagement. This is a genuine collective false memory.
Whether people saw a similar film when they were young and mixed it up with Shazaam, or had the memory of it embedded by hearing about it from a friend, this phenomenon wasn’t fabricated.
On the r/MandelaEffect subreddit, one frustrated poster wrote, “This is far and away the biggest Mandela Effect for me personally, there is nothing else like it that I have learned of so far –– in that, it is not a simple misspelling, physical trait in a logo design, misquoted line of dialogue, or anything else that can be rationally explained… it has been erased from existence!”
Kazaam theory
One of the most accepted answers to the Shazaam mystery is that people are remembering the film Kazaam, which starred Shaquille O’Neal as a genie.
Touchstone PicturesKazaam is a 1996 family comedy directed by Paul Michael Glaser. It ticks all the boxes. Genie: check. Wish granting: check. Kids’ fare: check. Two ‘A’s in the title: check.
One user under the same thread above commented, “Last night I asked my folks if they remembered this film… both of them did, and pops even described Sinbad to a T – curly-toed boots, big pants, earrings, etc. So I asked, ‘Do we own this film?’ They said yes!”
“While digging I remembered a label saying ‘Shazam’ in my mom’s handwriting, and lo and behold I found it! Ran into her bedroom to pop it in the VCR… it was f**king Kazaam!”
Another interested party chipped in with some tongue-in-cheek expert analysis, “Studies have shown that what actually happened was that the movie was so bad, that our brains literally rejected it and replaced it with a cheesy yet endearing Sinbad version called Shazam.
“In this way, our world may have become a little less real, but no longer were we in danger of wanting to kill ourselves due to the acting of one Shaq. It’s science.”
Shazaam could also be Aliens For Breakfast
Another possible explanation is that Shaazam fans are recalling the movie Aliens for Breakfast, a 1994 TV movie that starred Sinbad.
This theory was also brought to people’s attention on Reddit. It relies on the similarity of the real film and the fake. It also earns points for having Sinbad in it.
U/Mybustersword posted their theory, “a young boy discovers his free prize inside his cereal box is actually an alien. The alien is – you guessed it – Sinbad.”
Their helpful explanation continued, “The movie was like 40 minutes long, made for TV. Very forgetful. But, had many basic similarities to Kazaam – the kid finds a magic creature in an odd container, the creature is wise crackin’, follows the kid around, helps him out, and in the end beats a bad guy.”
Not everyone’s convinced though, with one comment reading, “But that isn’t the movie that everyone is talking about. I remember the outfit he wore I remember what the kids looked like that were in the movie because I was a little kid when I watched it. My dad remembers the movie My brothers remember the movie. And that 40-minute short movie was not it.”
Our memory can’t always be trusted
Our minds are capable of replacing details, recalling dreams as reality, or fabricating memories like patchwork.
The online communities plagued by Shaazam were first reported by New Statesman. The publication spoke to people who were adamant they weren’t confusing Shaazam with another film.
Leading memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus, known for her work on misinformation, false memory, and recovered memory, is often cited when the Shaazam topic arises.
Her work demonstrated how we can falsely recall memories or be manipulated into remembering things we never saw. We see this in false police confessions and the debated credibility of recovered memory therapy.
PubMed’s profile wrote, “Loftus has focused the bulk of her career on both the psychological and legal aspects of distorted or false memories, and her work demonstrates the facility with which memories and beliefs can be molded.
Her findings regarding the strength of eyewitness testimony and repressed traumatic memories have helped change the notion that such testimony is absolutely reliable.”
All this is a roundabout way of saying that you can’t always trust your recollection.
If you’re looking for something more tangible, see the new movies coming soon or our best movies list. We’ve also got Dune 3 and Avatar 3 to look forward to.