Whassup?

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This article is about the advertisement campaign. For the phrase itself, see What's up.

"Whassup!?" was a catch phrase used in a TV/radio commercial campaign for Anheuser-Busch Budweiser beer from 1999 to 2002. (The first spot aired during Monday Night Football, December 20 1999) The ad campaign became wildly popular all over the world, and a full blown pop culture phenomenon. The phrase itself is an alteration of the phrase "What's up?".

The commercials were based on a short film written & directed by Charles Stone III, that featured Philadelphia native Stone and several of his childhood friends Fred Thomas, Paul Williams, Terry Williams, and Kevin Lofton. The short film, entitled "True", portrayed Stone and his friends sitting around talking on the phone and saying "Whassup!" to one another in a comical way. The short was the hit of many film festivals around the country and eventually caught the attention of Vinny Warren, a creative director at the Chicago based ad agency DDB, who took the idea to August A. Busch IV, vice president of Anheuser-Busch, and signed Stone to direct Budweiser TV commercials based on the film (Scott Martin Brooks won the role of "Dookie" when Kevin Lofton declined to audition, choosing instead to pursue his career as animator at Nickelodeon and MTV). "Whassup!" went on to become one of the most award winning TV campaigns in history (winning the Cannes Grand Prix award and the Grand Clio award, among many others). And on May 16th 2006, the campaign was inducted into the CLIO Hall of Fame.

The popularity of the ad campaign skyrocketed later on in the 2000s when various independently produced parodies began appearing on the Internet (featuring the SuperFriends, The Simpsons, South Park, the Teletubbies, Rabbis, Grannies, and many others mimicking the commercials), resulting in it becoming an Internet phenomenon. In addition, many popular television shows such as Saturday Night Live and ESPN's SportsCenter did their own parodies of the commercials. The commercial was also parodied in the 2000 hit spoof Scary Movie by Marlon Wayans and other cast members. Charles, Scott, Paul and Fred also made guest appearances on many television shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Live With Regis & Kathy Lee, The Howard Stern Show, Entertainment Tonight, the Today Show, CBS This Morning, 48 Hours, and Inside Edition.

Budweiser would later do their own parodies of the ads with "yuppies" saying; "What are you doing?", and "New Jersey-ites" saying; "How ya' doin'?" There was also an international parody which featured Yorkshire men screaming the phrase "Ey up!", Scotsmen saying; "How's about ye'!", and Japanese men screaming; "Konnichiwa!"

Dance songs with the sole purpose of featuring the phrase were created, and resulted in chart success. These include "Whazzup" by True Party in 2000 (#13 on the UK Singles Chart), and "Wassup" by Da Muttz (a nom de plume of producers Alex Rizzo and Elliot Ireland) in the same year (#11 in the UK, #12 on Australian ARIAnet singles chart).

Pro-wrestling tag-team the Dudley Boyz adopted it as part of their signature finishing move. Bubba Ray slams the opponent to the mat, and D-Von climbs to the top rope, upon which, both men look at each other and proclaim "Whazzup!" before D-Von leaps on top of the prone opponent.

In early 2002, even though it was still popular, Budweiser decided to end the ad campaign, for undisclosed reasons.

The phrase's initial unbridled popularity had faded by about 2003. An episode of the hit series Friends makes reference to this. In a 9th season (2002-2003) episode^[specify], Chandler says to Ross's "Whassup" greeting, "Seriously, dude, three years ago." Also, in a 2004 episode of The Simpsons, Milhouse greets everyone with a "Whassup!", only to be met with indifference. It was also included in the MTV special: "That's so 5 minutes ago".

But, all in all, the campaign is remembered fondly by many, and has taken its place as one of television's all-time classic commercial campaigns, alongside: "don't squeeze the charmin", "time to make the donuts", and "where's the beef?".

Charles Stone III has since gone on to a successful Hollywood career, directing several feature films, including Paid in Full, Drumline, and Mr. 3000.

From 2000 to 2001, Scott, Paul and Fred hosted ABC's "Best Commercials You've Never Seen", then from 2001 to 2002 Scott took over as the solo host. Scott has also gone on to a successful solo acting career, with several film and TV roles, as well as commercials, such as Dr. Scholl's "Are you Gellin'?" (as of 2005).