shots 20th: 2000 - The Bud fraternity

It’s a guy thing, Danny Edwards discovers as he kicks back with director Charles Stone III to get the lowdown on one of the most infectious – and defining – catchphrases of the new millennium

“Let’s all meet up in the year 2000…”

sang Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker in 1995. And we did, but no one predicted that the way in which we’d all greet each other would be taken from an American beer commercial. When people glance back at the dawning of a new millennium looking to find the cultural zeitgeist, the chances are one word will dominate: Whassup!?

Such is the power of Budweiser’s most famous commercial you can only really pronounce that word with elongated vowels and by hanging out your tongue at the end. Directed by Believe Media’s Charles Stone III through DDB Chicago, the spot had an interesting – and lengthy – gestation period. It was originally a short film made by Stone – who was more used to shooting music promos – as a calling card to the features world in 1997/98. “The Music Video Production Association has a festival each year,” says Stone, “and the film was a hit there.

I started to court studios with possible film stuff and a year later I went into doing a feature film, and at that point – the fall of ‘99 – I got a call saying that DDB Chicago had seen the short and wanted to turn it into a campaign, which I was originally reluctant to do.”

The idea for the short film, and the use of ‘whassup!?’, came from friends of Stone’s who used to say it back when they were in college. “I knew it couldn’t just be about guys screaming ‘whassup!?’” laughs Stone. “What I was attracted to was that thing where people would be on the phone and watching TV at the same time, what I used to refer to as men holding hands through the phone. If you were to translate what they were saying to each other, it’s just, ‘you still there?’.”

Although initially reluctant to make the ad, Stone realised that if he didn’t do it, the agency might simply find someone else to do something similar so decided to “put my best foot forward”. DDB had faith in the idea and in Stone, even if the client was initially unconvinced, and bought the rights to the idea for five years and then set about making the first, defining ‘whassup!?’ spot.

“We casted for three days and saw about 80 guys each day because there was a concern, I think through Anheuser-Busch, that we make it multicultural,” recalls Stone. “And I was fine with that, it wasn’t like it was a black thing per se, and I was interested to see what it would look like.

Then on the last day I brought in the original cast and the agency was like, ‘we should stick with them’.”

We now know how huge the commercial was, dominating awards shows and pervading popular culture. Did Stone know how big a hit he had on his hands?

“You know,” laughs Stone, “I never thought I’d be doing Jay Leno off the back of this, or Oprah; that caught me off guard. I didn’t think it would catch fire the way it did. I remember my aunt called me one day saying I’d truly made it into the pop lexicon, and I was like, why’s that? And she said, ‘you were a question on Jeopardy’. That’s when I knew I was locked and loaded.”

As well as spawning more Whassup!? iterations, Stone re-appropriated the characters for his equally successful Obama campaign in 2008.

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