Wassup?

The catchphrase "Wassup?" at one time vied with other weighty questions such as "Got Milk?" and "Where's the Beef?" as a classic commercial slogan, which was put in service by Budweiser beer. The original commercial, which starred a quartet of "middle-class black males" who are cast as "Everymen" was extremely, if inexplicably, popular. Now the group appears in the Obama ad below. Business Week offers an interesting analysis of how it achieved its big-budget quality, why Bud isn't claiming infringement, and how independent producers sometimes maintain control over the intellectual property that promotes large corporate interests. The group's website is here.



Of course, there are many other restagings and remixings of the commercial on YouTube, including vernacular video practices involving home movie style interactions.