According to the Urban Dictionary Wassup is the short form of “what’s up,” a form of greeting, as in “hi.”
The first Wassup Anheuser-Busch Budweiser beer ad aired during Monday Night Football on December 20, 1999. The Budweiser commercials were based on a short film called True, written and directed by Charles Stone III. Stone appeared in the commercial and is the man who answers the phone at the start.
The Wassup signature catch phrase became a sensation and was talked about on talk shows, parodied in films and TV shows, and made a lyric for songs. The catch phrase was even mimicked in non-Budweiser commercials. Wassup was one of the first campaigns to go viral at a time when the Internet was new to the public.
In 2020 Budweiser brought back the 1999 Wassup ad with a quarantine-themed remake. They re-recorded the audio to make it more relevant to people in lock down and encourage them to connect with friends and family. The ad used the original video but with new audio more suited to 2020. In the opening shot one of the actors answers the phone saying they are “in quarantine, having a Bud”, rather than “watching the game, having a Bud”.
On the TV series Daily Blast Live, Scott Brooks, one of the stars of the classic TV commercials, shares how the spot came together, his fan encounters, and how the commercial changed his life. Brooks played the the role of Dookie.