Let’s not beat around the bush here: There’s exactly one reason why we’re talking about EuroTrip, a middling teen sex comedy from 2004, on its 20th birthday, and it’s the adultery anthem “Scotty Doesn’t Know” that graces the film’s first act. Riding on the surprise success of its spiritual predecessor, Road Trip, this tale of a group of American high school graduates backpacking through Europe before heading off to college was not a smash hit by any metric. But “Scotty Doesn’t Know,” featuring Matt Damon in one of the most delightfully unhinged celebrity cameos possibly ever, rescues EuroTrip from mid-2000s mediocrity.
Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) is graduating high school and head over heels in love with his girlfriend Fiona (Kristin Kreuk). There’s just one problem: She’s apparently been less than faithful to our hapless hero, a fact we learn (as all bad news should be delivered, honestly) through song. Matt Damon appears as Donny, the skinhead punk singer who has been secretly sleeping with Fiona, a liaison that provides the inspiration for the inexplicably catchy “Scotty Doesn’t Know.” Not only does it recount in some detail all of their affairs, but its chorus openly mocks poor Scotty’s utter obliviousness, reminding the listeners that Scotty doesn’t know about Fiona’s extracurricular activities, and that they should under no circumstances tell Scotty.
If that was the song’s only appearance in EuroTrip, it would still be worthwhile. It’s a catchy original tune that you can legitimately believe as a breakaway pop punk hit, capitalizing on all of Scotty’s sad sack energy and using Matt Damon to great effect. But what elevates it into one of the most memorable cinematic songs of the 2000s is how well “Scotty Doesn’t Know” is utilized as a recurring gag throughout the film. While the group of friends travel across Europe, “Scotty Doesn’t Know” becomes an international sensation, effectively haunting Scotty everywhere he goes as a constant reminder of one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. Teen comedies are no stranger to callbacks and repeat jokes, but the use of a song as a comedic framing device is something much more novel – probably the most clever part of the entire film. What’s more, the style of humor in the song is representative of the film in general, and why it has grown to be so endearing to audiences over the years. It’s crude and over-the-top, like you would expect from a teen sex comedy, but it also has notes of surrealism and absurdism that keep things interesting beyond the shock value of the more obvious set pieces.
But as perfectly planned as “Scotty Doesn’t Know” appeared to be, so much of its appeal was down to a whimsical – and Ivy League – happenstance. Though EuroTrip takes place all across Europe, it was filmed entirely in the Czech Republic – which is where Matt Damon just happened to be filming The Brothers Grimm alongside Heath Ledger at the time. Based on locational serendipity, he was available to quickly shoot a cameo for director Jeff Schaffer and writers Alec Berg and David Mandel, who he knew from his days back at Harvard. And as luck would also have it, he was wearing a wig for his role in Grimm, giving the Eurotrip crew carte blanche to shave his head for the perfect punk rock look.
That’s not the end of this Cambridgian web of connections, either. “Scotty Doesn’t Know” was written and performed (no, that’s not actually Matt Damon singing) by Boston band Lustra, who had their own fair share of Harvard cred. As Damon explained in a 2016 Reddit AMA, the song was written by the brother of a friend at Harvard, and Damon’s college roommate Jason Adams was the band’s guitarist. Although EuroTrip didn’t blow away the box office when it first hit theaters, it caught on with audiences when it was released on home video, allowing “Scotty Doesn’t Know” – and Lustra – to have a longer slow burn of success on the strength of their demoralizing little earworm. “Scotty Doesn’t Know” ended up taking on a life of its own, eventually hitting #75 on the Billboard Hot 100 as the band’s biggest single by far.
Without “Scotty Doesn’t Know,” EuroTrip is a fun but forgettable teen comedy, one that probably doesn’t age particularly well in terms of representation of European culture and the fact that every girl in the film seems to be required to take her shirt off at one point or another. But this song provides not only a memorable opening sequence that sets the plot in motion, or a humdinger to build its soundtrack around – in a weird way, “Scotty Doesn’t Know” gives EuroTrip its entire narrative framework.
