Here's An Oral History Of 'Scotty Doesn't Know' From 'EuroTrip'

There are two things I remember distinctly about putting this piece together. First, that it took a surprisingly long time. I remember my editor always checking in on Slack, asking, "What are you working on this week?" And for over a month straight this would always be part of my answer. And it didn't help he had no idea what I was talking about since he had no relationship with the motion picture EuroTrip. So, for him, I was wasting a significant amount of time writing a 3000 word history of, not the movie EuroTrip (a movie that finished fifth at the box office the weekend it was released, behind Welcome to Mooseport), but one song in the movie EuroTrip.

The other thing was I desperately wanted to talk to Matt Damon for this piece. I had interviewed Matt Damon twice in my life and I thought, maybe, that might help me convince his publicist to let me have a couple minutes to talk to him about "Scotty Doesn't Know." I probably emailed Damon's publicist five times over the course of a month. As you might expect, I never heard back. I didn't even get an email giving me "the hard pass." Perhaps a request from the guy who asked Damon, "In Oceans 12 Tess knows she looks like Julia Roberts so does that mean Linus knows he looks like you?" didn't have much of a chance.

Though, during that same interview with Damon in 2013 for Elysium, I did randomly bring up “Scotty Doesn’t Know.”

I'd love to see what the "Scotty Doesn't Know" singer is doing today.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I wonder where he is. I think he's still singing in backyard parties.

So, there you go. Anyway! Here is an oral history of "Scotty Doesn't Know" from the movie EuroTrip.

DON’T TELL SCOTTY BUT HERE’S AN ORAL HISTORY OF ‘SCOTTY DOESN’T KNOW’

Back in 2000, Road Trip, a movie starring Breckin Meyer, Seann William Scott and Tom Green, became a bit of a sensation, making a whole lot of money off of a pretty small budget. Four years later, even though it was a completely different creative team, the raunchy EuroTrip was released in theaters billed as “from the producers of Road Trip.” EuroTrip would wind up having a higher budget and would make considerably less money than Road Trip. (It is actually very difficult to find someone who actually saw EuroTrip in theaters.)

Then a strange thing happened…

Today, EuroTrip – directed by Jeff Schaffer (currently a director and producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm), Alec Berg (executive producer on Silicon Valley), and David Mandel (showrunner of Veep); only Schaffer was allowed a full directing credit – is considered a cult classic, while Road Trip has largely been forgotten. And a huge reason for this is that EuroTrip had a secret weapon that even the filmmakers didn’t quite know they had at the time – a catchy song of betrayal that is played throughout the film called “Scotty Doesn’t Know.”

Early in the film, Scott Thomas (played by Scott Mechlowicz) is dumped by his girlfriend, Fiona (Kristin Kreuk). Later that night at a high school graduation party, Scotty watches his whole life collapse when a garage band singer (still, shockingly, played by Matt Damon) starts performing a song called “Scotty Doesn’t Know” that chronicles, in great detail, the illicit affair between Damon’s singer and Fiona as the two dance, gyrate, and sing the song right there in front of a humiliated Scotty. Matt Damon ends the song by literally screaming and wagging his tongue toward Scotty.

It’s all this that convinces Scotty to head to Europe at the last second with his friends in a quest to find his German pen pal (Jessica Boehrs). While Scotty is in Europe, the song “Scotty Doesn’t Know” becomes an international sensation.

Fourteen years after the film’s release, “Scotty Doesn’t Know” is still an anthem, still played at proms and parties. And, maybe even more absurd, considering the tone of the song, it makes people happy. It’s almost impossible to hear “Scotty Doesn’t Know” and not smile.

Ahead (because why not?) we will take you through the complete history of “Scotty Doesn’t Know” from the perspective of the filmmakers, actors, the band who performed the song, and even a musician who wrote the other version of Scotty Doesn’t Know that wasn’t used in the film.

(When I spoke to the filmmakers, they were, let’s say, a little surprised this was going to be the topic of conversation.)

Jeff Schaffer, Director: This is a fantastic use of everyone’s time.

David Mandel, Writer: We thought we were making the movie to come out and be very popular then! It turns out, what we really did, is you wait 20 years and then it’s very popular. So we’re taking it very well.

(The Hard Pass only exists because of paying subscribers and I do need to have posts just for them. If you decide to become a paying subscriber today, there is plenty left to this story, plus a lot more like the story I was told about Tom Cruise that is now my favorite Tom Cruise story, approaching Philip Seymour Hoffman to ask him about Along Came Polly, and the time Larry King called me a "freak" and asked if I was "a nerd.")