Since it was April Fools’ Day over the weekend, a lot of stupid things happened on the internet. Thankfully, the prankster holiday wasn’t all garbage with Adult Swim having a surprise debut of the third season premiere of Rick and Morty. But when it comes to online jokes, College Humor may have taken the cake.
If you’ve spent any time reading about movies online, then you’ve probably heard about people claiming to have vivid memories of a movie called Shazam starring Sinbad as a genie. Your immediate thought may be that the movie they’re thinking of is called Kazaam, and it didn’t star Sinbad, but rather NBA star Shaquille O’Neal. But somehow there are still people who legitimately think they’ve seen this movie. Well, College Humor made them all honest by unearthing footage from this lost movie that never actually existed, featuring none other than the real Sinbad himself.
Watch the Sinbad Shazam movie footage below.
The AV Club points out that while this could have easily been an obvious cash-in on a viral internet meme, the short is actually rather clever in what is included in the footage. You see, the existence of Shazam is considered to be part of what is called The Mandela Effect, a human tendency to create shared incorrect memories that feel real. You can go see 20 examples that might drive you crazy right here, and then rewatch the video to see if you notice any references to The Mandela Effect and some of the pieces of pop culture that have become associated with it.
The existence of Shazam, or lack thereof, has become such a popular topic of discussion that there’s even a Snopes.com article that tries to clear up the confusion. But as long as people want to keep giving into these false memories, Shazam will always be real. And it’s probably no worse than Jingle All the Way.
The post VOTD: College Humor’s ‘Shazam’ Footage Makes a Fake Sinbad Movie a Real One appeared first on /Film.
