Did Sinbad Play a Genie in the Movie 'Shazam'? This, and Other Examples of the Mandela Effect

When the DC superhero flick Shazam 2 was announced, there were tons of folks who distinctly recalled watching a genie-led flick with actor/comedian Sinbad of the same name. In fact, there were even people who said that they had hoped he would be making a cameo in the film.

However, after folks started doing some deep diving online, they noticed that this movie was missing from Sinbad's IMDB page. Which got a lot of people wondering: did Sinbad ever play a genie in the movie Shazam?

What people are probably confusing for Sinbad's Shazam is actually the 1996 comedy called Kazaam starring Shaquille O'Neal as a genie who was trapped inside a magical boombox. He gets released by a young boy who then befriends him.

So why do so many people swear that Sinbad was in a movie with a similar name, playing the same role helmed by one of the NBA's most recognizable stars of the '90s and 2000s?

I've got some theories on that.

First, Sinbad was on a tear when it came to theatrical releases in 1996, the same year that Kazaam came out.

The previous year, Houseguest was released by Walt Disney Studios where Sinbad starred opposite Phil Hartman. He also voiced Riley in Homeward Bound, and played a bodyguard to the President's son in First Kid. He then starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger as a toy-obsessed mailman in Jingle All the Way, and starred in the HBO comedy western The Cherokee Kid.

Just a year later, Sinbad starred in Good Burger. So for an entire generation of kids watching new comedies in that time period, they were constantly seeing the comedian yuck it up on the big screen.

Now, Shaq and Sinbad don't look anything like one another, but Shaq is rocking an aesthetic that was kind of in line with what Sinbad would wear regularly.

He has a gold earring in the trailer for the film, and Sinbad was more or less always rocking jewelry on his ear lobes as well. In fact, there's actually a picture of Sinbad in the1990s wearing what looks like a tunic as he carries a golden lamp in his left hand. Then there's the very nature of his name — Sinbad the fabled sailor of Arab descent has a moniker that would be at home in any tale about a genie.

As Medical News Today states, the Mandela effect is a collective "false memory that occurs when many different people incorrectly remember the same thing."

Sinbad's turn in the movie that never happened, Shazam, is one example of the Mandela effect. One that Dropout used for the basis of an April Fool's Day prank in a fictional movie starring the actor.

In an X thread dedicated to the Mandela effect, several folks posted their favorite examples of the phenomena. It begins with Sinbad, however, there were others that turned out to be not true, either.

Are there any other examples of the Mandela effect that you can think of? Maybe the fact that you always thought the Fruit of the Loom logo had a cornucopia on it? (It doesn't!)