Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Film and television

Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar's trying his hand at acting. He made his film debut in Bruce Lee 's 1972 film Game of Death.

In 1980, Abdul-Jabbar played co-pilot Roger Murdock in Airplane! He has a scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Abdul-Jabbar, spoofing the appearance of football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch as an airplane pilot in the 1957 drama that served as the inspiration for Airplane!, Zero Hour! Staying in character, Abdul-Jabbar states that he is merely Roger Murdock, an airline co-pilot; the boy continues to insist that Abdul-Jabbar is "the greatest", but that according to his father he does not "work hard on defense" and that he does not "really try, except during the playoffs". This causes Abdul-Jabbar's character to snap and break character: "The hell I don't!" He then grabs the boy and snarls that he has "been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA" and been "busting my buns every night!" He instructs the boy: "Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes." When Murdock loses consciousness later in the film, he collapses at the controls wearing Abdul-Jabbar's goggles and yellow Lakers' shorts. In 2014, Abdul-Jabbar and Airplane! co-star Robert Hays (character Ted Striker) reprised their Airplane! roles in a parody commercial promoting Wisconsin tourism.

Abdul-Jabbar has had numerous other television and film appearances, often playing himself. He has had roles in movies such as Fletch, Troop Beverly Hills and Forget Paris, and television series such as Full House, Living Single, Amen, Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Diff'rent Strokes (his height humorously contrasted with that of diminutive child star Gary Coleman), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Scrubs, 21 Jump Street, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, and New Girl. Abdul-Jabbar played a genie in a lamp in a 1984 episode of Tales from the Darkside. He also played himself on the February 10, 1994, episode of the sketch comedy television series In Living Color.

Abdul-Jabbar appeared in the television version of Stephen King 's The Stand, played the Archangel of Basketball in Slam Dunk Ernest, and had a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in BASEketball. Abdul-Jabbar was also the co-executive producer of the 1994 TV film The Vernon Johns Story. He has also made appearances on The Colbert Report in a 2006 skit called "HipHopKetball II: The ReJazzebration Remix '06", and in 2008 as a stage manager who is sent out on a mission to find Nazi gold. Abdul-Jabbar also voiced himself in a 2011 episode of The Simpsons titled " Love Is a Many Strangled Thing ". He had a recurring role as himself on the NBC series Guys with Kids, which aired from 2012 to 2013. On Al Jazeera English he expressed his desire to be remembered not just as a player, but also as somebody who used their mind and made other contributions.

Abdul-Jabbar appeared in the music video for " Good Goodbye ", a 2017 song by rock band Linkin Park featuring rappers Pusha T and Stormzy. In the video, Abdul-Jabbar plays the role of a warlord or emperor of a dunk contest where Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington has to dunk on several people in order to save his own life. In an interview about the video, Bennington said that he believes Abdul-Jabbar is the "greatest player of all-time".

In February 2019, he appeared in season 12 episode 16 of The Big Bang Theory, " The D&D Vortex ". In 2021, Abdul-Jabbar made a guest appearance as himself in a season 2 episode of Dave. The episode he appeared in was also named after him. Abdul-Jabbar makes a cameo appearance as himself in the 2022 Netflix film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. In 2023, Abdul-Jabbar appeared as himself in season 7, episode 3 of the Showtime series Billions
detectable_format:json_format