People are convinced Sinbad starred in a movie named Shazaam… but it never happened

You might be familiar with the 1996 movie called Kazaam featuring basketball player Shaquille O’Neal. Have you heard of the movie Shazaam featuring comedian Sinbad? I haven’t, but there are users on Reddit who are convinced it once existed and has been covered up.

I remember when the movie Kazaam came out and thinking of what a silly topic it was – Shaq played a genie. Lore has it that Shazaam featured Sinbad in a similar role, also as a genie. The only movie I can name off the top of my head featuring Sinbad is 1996’s First Kid.

Joking aside, people are legit worried that there’s some sort of massive cover-up trying to disguise the existence of this so-called Shazaam flick. Insider covered the story recently, noting that this is a great example of the Mandela Effect, wherein a large group of people seem to remember the same thing happening, even when it never did.

There’s a subreddit focused on the topic. “We all CLEARLY have an image in our heads of the 90s comedian Sinbad dressed as a genie,” Redditor Debaser 1215 said a year ago. We’ve since searched the internet and can find no reference to it. We’ve done some informal polling of other people and many also seem to remember this.”

Even Sinbad denies making such a film:

@WillyBeamen_ ain't Nuthin hidden in This internet universe. It should be easy to find if I did a genie movie

— Sinbad (@sinbadbad) September 7, 2016

Sinbad a genie?

While there’s no real conclusion as to why these folks seem to think the film ever existed, one user has an explanation that might help:

“When I first read this, I had a vague image of Sinbad with a genie/pirate outfit on,” Redditor All_of_them_witches said. “I did a little research on the net to find that there was a children’s animated movie called Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. The main character looks like he could be confused with being a genie. And I’m pretty sure my memories are of this.”

I’m not quite sure why the Reddit thread is only surfacing now, it was highlighted in a recent article of the New Statesman, but it’s a curious event indeed. Did you ever see a movie named Shazaam?