You’ve heard it all before, so airlines are enlivening their in-flight safety videos. Alf, the 1980s TV show alien.

The spoof movie “Airplane!” is be-coming the basis for something real, 34 years after its release.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is reprising his role as the pilot Roger Murdock in Delta Air Lines’ in-flight safety vid-eo that began appearing last month.

He doesn’t give Clarence clear-ance, and isn’t told “Roger, Roger!” He merely appears, with a knowing wink, as the punch line to what is a decidedly different take on the tradi-tional safety video, including 1980s references like a Devo hat, a heavy metal guitarist, Valley girls and Alf trying on an oxygen mask.

All in the name of safety — and marketing.

It’s the latest example of how air-lines are rethinking what has been one of the most ignored, if important, few minutes of any passenger’s trip.

The stated aim is to focus atten-tion on what to do during an emer-gency. But Delta and other airlines increasingly see them as an oppor-tunity to bring buzz to their brands.

“Airlines recognize that safe-ty videos are beyond boring, that travelers aren’t paying attention to them,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst for Hudson Crossing. “But they’re required, and the con-tent they contain is important.”

Enter the marketing depart-ments, which are increasingly tak-ing over the creation of the videos.

“If they’re fun, more people will pay attention to important infor-mation,” Mr. Harteveldt said. “And they will serve as a reason for trav-elers to fly the airline. It’s a small reason, but small things can help an airline stand out.”

It has worked quite well for Virgin America, which released its “safety dance” last fall, attracting more than 8.6 million views on YouTube. It has driving music, professional dancers and soaring lyrics with exhortations like “So tonight, get ready to fly, cuz we’re gonna live it on up in the sky.”

Air New Zealand has been mak-ing safety videos since 2009. “Air New Zealand is a small airline at the bottom of the world ,” said Mike Tod, its chief marketing officer. “We have to do things differently.”

Its videos have featured flight at-tendants and pilots delivering safe-ty instructions wearing nothing but painted-on uniforms .

Mauricio Parise, director of mar-keting communications for Delta, said the airline did not consider it risky to feature an actor from “Air-plane!” — which depicts an aircraft in distress — in the video, since the film is “one of the funniest and most iconic movies of all time.”

And although Mr. Harteveldt said safety videos provided “great expo-sure” to carriers on social media, he warned that Virgin America’s “safe-ty dance” might alienate frequent business travelers like himself .

“Once you’ve seen it once or twice, you’re done with it,” he said.