NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is not afraid to lean into pop culture. Whether he’s teaching Uncle Jesse how to play basketball on ‘Full House,’ playing golf with Uncle Phil on ‘The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air,’ appearing on worthless, quickly-canceled sitcoms of the 2010s or simply jumping on the We Hate Lena Dunham bandwagon, Kareem will participate in your popular things and wallow.
His most famous contribution to pop culture (you know, besides all the basketball) is still his turn as Roger Murdock, the airplane co-pilot who is also probably Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in the legendary 1980 comedy Airplane. Randomly, Abdul-Jabbar is now returning to that role in a series of Zucker Brothers/Jim Abrahams-directed commercials for (of all things) the Wisconsin Department of Tourism. OKAY, SURE. It’s a great decision, considering that to date the best Travel Wisconsin advertisement was just a lady with a bunch of leaves on her head.
We’ll be sure to share the commercials when they’re available (because everybody loves seasonal Wisconsin footage), but until then, never forget:
Between these commercials and Cam Neely reprising the role of Seabass in Dumb And Dumber To, the non-sports-related sports movie world’s a pretty happy place.
[BWO NESN]
