6 times that NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored in popular culture

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ranks among the NBA's all-time leaders in points scored, minutes and games played, and rebounds, and he led his teams to six NBA titles.

Some of his records are getting eclipsed — this week, Giannis Antetokounmpo surpassed him as the all-time Milwaukee Bucks leader in rebounds — but the 76-year-old Hall of Famer is still a formidable presence. Last weekend, he made headlines after a fall before a concert in Los Angeles landed him in the hospital with a broken hip.

Abdul-Jabbar — whose professional basketball career started in Milwaukee and who, in his second season, brought the Bucks their first NBA title — also has made his mark on American popular culture, as an actor, a media personality, a historian and even a novelist.

Here are six times that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made his mark playing something other than basketball.

As co-pilot Roger Murdock in 'Airplane!'

Abdul-Jabbar's best-known, and best-loved, moment in front of the camera was playing co-pilot Roger Murdock in the classic 1980 spoof "Airplane!" directed by Shorewood natives Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker. He gets to show his comic timing in the part, especially when "denying" he actually is the NBA legend but then challenging a boy's comments about his play on the court. In 2014, he "returned" to the role to film some promotional spots for Wisconsin tourism.

As a fighting foe of Bruce Lee in 'Game of Death'

A martial arts aficionado, Abdul-Jabbar began training with legend Bruce Lee when he was still in college. He credited Lee, who became a close friend, with helping him become "stronger, faster and a much more intense player." Abdul-Jabbar was good enough that he was cast as one of the bad guys — a corrupt dojo ruler's enforcer — in what was to be Lee's last movie, "Game of Death." When Lee died in 1973 at age 32, producers decided to retool the movie using Lee's fight scenes — including one shot with Abdul-Jabbar — and bring in a different actor to shoot the rest. Abdul-Jabbar refused to take part in the reshoot out of respect for Lee, so an unconvincing double was brought in to shoot his remaining scenes.

As a Dungeons & Dragons player on 'The Big Bang Theory'

Abdul-Jabbar appeared in scores of television shows, sometimes in dramatic roles but often playing a variation of himself. In a 2019 episode of "The Big Bang Theory," for example, he was part of a group of celebrities gathered by recurring character Wil Wheaton (also playing himself) to play Dungeons & Dragons; the other players he bantered with included William Shatner, Joe Manganiello and Kevin Smith.

As a successor to Arthur Conan Doyle

Abdul-Jabbar has written in just about every genre, from autobiography to young adult, from inspirational to history. And then there his series of Mycroft Holmes novels (co-written with Anna Waterhouse), focusing focus on the sleuthing adventures of Sherlock Holmes' older brother. The basketball star turned writer said he began reading Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories when he was a rookie with the Milwaukee Bucks: "I was fascinated by Holmes' ability to see clues where other people saw nothing," Abdul-Jabbar told Esquire magazine when the first book in the series, "Mycroft Holmes," came out in 2015. "It was like he saw the world in color while everyone else saw in black and white."

As an Emmy-nominated history buff

Putting his interest in history to work, Abdul-Jabbar served as narrator on two documentaries for the History channel — "Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution" and "Black Patriots: Heroes of the Civil War" — and was nominated for Emmy Awards for outstanding narrator on both projects.

As a (somewhat fictional) character in 'Winning Time'

The HBO series "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" centers on the sea change in pro basketball with the NBA arrival of Magic Johnson and his archrival Larry Bird, but as the Los Angeles Lakers' reigning star at the time, Abdul-Jabbar (played by Solomon Hughes) probably has the show's most interesting journey. But it wasn't interesting to the man himself. Abdul-Jabbar called the production "obvious and predictable" (he titled a brief essay on the show "'Winning Time' Isn’t Just Deliberately Dishonest, It’s Drearily Dull"). "It never held my interest enough for me to care, let alone be outraged," he wrote.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a champion in pop culture, too