The thing that just won’t die!!!

I just read today that Andy Samberg, the funny one on Saturday Night Live who just quit, has a new movie out called That’s My Boy in which he co-stars with Adam Sandler.

In the movie, Adam Sandler plays his ne’er-do-well father.  And one of the running gags in the movie is that his dad still thinks saying “Whassuuup!” is hysterical all these years later.

In the interview, Samberg said:

“I’ve had a love-hate relationship with ‘Whassup?’ since those commercials came out,” noted Samberg, who just announced his departure from the sketch show, Saturday Night Live.

“In fact, my first ‘Weekend Update’ feature I ever did on SNL was with Bill Hader, and that was my joke, that all I said was, ‘Whassup?'”

I remember when he said that on his first appearance on SNL seven years ago and i groaned slightly.  It felt utterly played even then, much less now.

But here is the weird part about it, the Budweiser Whassup! commercials were so popular, and were referenced in the pop culture so many times over the years that I stopped feeling anything, positive or negative, at a certain point.  And they were my idea. it is strange. I couldn’t imagine such a thing. It still feels odd that i feel such a distance from something that was once so close to my heart.

But I completely understand what Mr. Samberg means.

I recall sitting in the edit suite when we were cutting the very first Whassup! ads, and by day 5 I was ready to hang myself from listening to his catchphrase over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I was the very first Whassup! burnout casualty.

And I also vividly recall being in New York three months later on a Saturday night with my co-workers shooting new Whassup! commercials to feed the frenzy that had blown up around them.

All our cell phones rang simultaneously.  Our friends and families were calling up with the exciting news that Saturday Night Live started with a parody of our commercials.

And i remember being surprised at how our minds WEREN’T blown by this otherwise exciting news.

It’s amazing how fast we adapt.