Shazaam

EPISODE 161: Why a (fake) genie movie feels so real.

We live in an unprecedented era of misinformation. Of government-controlled hurricanes, and armies of blue-check bots, and everyone secretly being a transgender clone of John F. Kennedy Jr.

It’s gotten to the point where you now see real news on your timeline — about how the best postgame show in sports history, Inside the NBA, is suddenly ending, for instance — and the default assumption is that it must be fake.

But that one is true. Turner Sports lost the TV rights to the NBA, after being outbid by NBC, and so this season marks the last time we’ll see Chuck and Ernie and Kenny and Shaq at their legendary, enormous desk. The show is, fundamentally, inimitable — as evidenced by the many failed attempts to engineer knockoff versions.

All of which brings us to the star of Kazaam himself.

Shaquille O’Neal, to my knowledge, has never discussed this story in public. And he really is the childhood hero of PTFO correspondent David Gardner, who’s written for Sports Illustrated and The New York Times and GQ and The Washington Post and yet remains singularly obsessed with the phenomenon of an extremely fake Shaq knockoff (starring Sinbad):

Shazaam.

A movie that only exists in the minds of the many who refuse to believe otherwise.

DKN/YOUTUBE SPOILER ALERT:

Magically,

Pablo