Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was captured in an old-school moment earlier this week. Or rather, Roger Murdoch was captured in an old-school moment earlier this week.
Abdul-Jabbar joined forces with Robert Hays to reprise their characters from the 1980 movie "Airplane," the spoof on the airplane disaster movies of the 1970s.
In an advertisement for Travel Wisconsin, Hays and Abdul-Jabbar are the pilot and co-pilot reciting lines from the movie. Ironically, they never exchanged lines in the actual movie. Abdul-Jabbar's scenes were with the late Peter Graves.
While Abdul-Jabbar had been with the Los Angeles Lakers for five seasons (he was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969 and played there six years) prior to the movie, his role in "Airplane" likely cemented the city's love affair with the skillful center. The Lakers had just won their first NBA championship with Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson starting up the "Showtime" era.
A Sports Illustrated article in the spring of 1980 depicted Abdul-Jabbar as a once-moody player who was seemingly coming out of his shell, at long last.
The role that Abdul-Jabbar played confirmed that notion when he allowed himself to be made fun of in the movie.
The dialog with a boy named Joey, who recognizes the co-pilot as Abdul-Jabbar and then goes into a monologue about how his dad views the Lakers center, is captured by the Los Angeles Times. It was a role that was opposite of the persona Abdul-Jabbar had created to that point of his career, and it made him the lovable, gentle giant of L.A.:
Joey: I think you're the greatest, but my dad says you don't work hard enough on defense.
[Kareem gets angry]
Joey: And he says that lots of times, you don't even run down court. And that you don't really try... except during the playoffs.
Roger Murdock: [breaking character] The hell I don't! LISTEN, KID! I've been hearing that ever since I was at UCLA. I'm out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.
So even if the new ad is a little cheesy, it is a reminder of the time that Abdul-Jabbar turned into simply "Kareem" to Laker and NBA fans everywhere.
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