Unsurprisingly, it's MySpace's fault

August 20, 2018 8:40 AM

Eurotrip barely made a dent in theaters in 2004, but the song that initiated the titular trip somehow made it onto the Billboard charts two years later, and remains a cult favorite more than a decade later. "Scotty Doesn't Know", a pop-punk anthem to cheating, remains Matt Damon's most enduring cultural legacy.
posted by Etrigan (38 comments total)

god this movie is so bad and yet i want to watch it again immediately. IMMEDIATELY.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:50 AM on August 20, 2018 [10 favorites]

Surely Matt Damon's most enduring cultural legacy is "Fucking Matt Damon."
posted by Chrysostom at 8:51 AM on August 20, 2018 [19 favorites]

"It is actually very difficult to find someone who actually saw EuroTrip in theaters."

*Reluctantly raises hand*
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:55 AM on August 20, 2018 [9 favorites]

I don't think I've even seen the damn movie and this song still pops up on the internal jukebox now and then. Catchy as hell.
posted by corvine at 8:58 AM on August 20, 2018

I've never watched Eurotrip, but my brother in law owns a VANDERSEXXX t-shirt which is apparently a thing from the movie, so I guess it has a following.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:00 AM on August 20, 2018

It’s basically a series of sketches, but it has Thomas Lennon as a very angry silver-painted mime.

Let that be your guide.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:12 AM on August 20, 2018 [5 favorites]

Sure, it wasn't high art, but it's way better than it gets credit for. It's easily as funny as Animal House or Revenge of the Nerds or any of those revered college comedies from the 80s. Expect dumb, silly fun and you'll get it. I don't understand why it gets so much hate. It's like attacking an ice cream sundae because it's not a nutritious salad.
posted by skullhead at 9:17 AM on August 20, 2018 [10 favorites]

It’s...not a good movie. But it’s also weirdly accurate, or at least it felt weirdly accurate at the time, when I worked with a bunch of Germans.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 9:25 AM on August 20, 2018

Eurotrip is worth it just for the hostel briefing:

"Hello, and welcome to Amsterdam's finest and most luxurious youth hostel. We feature one medium sized room containing 70 beds which can sleep up to 375 bodies a night. There is no bathroom. Nor is there one nearby. If you do not wish to have your valuables stolen I suggest destroying them or discarding them right now. You can also try hiding your valuables. In your anus. This will deter some but of course not all thieves. Once you are inside, the doors are chained and locked from the outside. They will not be opened again until morning, no matter what. Should a fire occur due to our faulty wiring or, uh, the fireworks factory upstairs you will be incinerated along with the valuables that you have hidden in your anus. Tips are greatly appreciated."

posted by JoeZydeco at 9:27 AM on August 20, 2018 [27 favorites]

Oh god, this song is super catchy, but having this and Shrek be the only pop-culture references to my name led to so many boring and predictable jokes in school. So thanks Eurotrip, I guess, Shrek was a much better film.
posted by stillnocturnal at 9:32 AM on August 20, 2018

Eurotrip is worth it just for the hostel briefing

Delivered by Lucy Lawless in a cheesy Scandinavian accent, which sorta has to be seen to be fully appreciated.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:35 AM on August 20, 2018

Wait, sorry, it's Joanna Lumley that's the hostel clerk, which is even better. Lawless is Mistress Vandersexxx.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:37 AM on August 20, 2018 [5 favorites]

Mi scusi

I had litterally the same experience on an Italian train.


Joe Lies is a much better song, of course.
posted by humboldt32 at 9:37 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've never seen this movie, but that hostel briefing is not toooooooo far away from one I got in the worst hostel I ever stayed in (in Australia).
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:42 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I was gonna say that I think I stayed in that hostel in Poland.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 9:46 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

" having this and Shrek be the only pop-culture references to my name led to so many boring and predictable jokes in school"

Sorry to hear that. High school kids can be real jerks, Scott Farquaad.
posted by haileris23 at 9:58 AM on August 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

I recently marathoned the first season of The Sinner on Netflix, and ended up texting my husband "Cooper from Eurotrip is really really disturbing as a kinda bad guy on this show I'm watching" (complete with screenshot). Basically, it's nice seeing him get work, but it was still disconcerting. Given how often we both quote that damn movie to each other.

I mean, every time the dryer buzzes I usually end up shouting "I'm coming!!!" like Jenny does in the train station. I really can't tell you how deeply this film has impacted our dialogue.

Also, perfect use of Vinnie Jones.
posted by librarianamy at 9:59 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

Hostel Scene. (SLYT)
posted by bonehead at 9:59 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

This article was actually pretty helpful to me in terms of explaining gaps in my cultural knowledge. I never saw the movie, but a few years ago when nostalgia for the early 2000s first blossomed, people started putting the song on pop-punk playlists pretty regularly. I was confused, because I was pretty heavily into pop-punk at the time, and I had no memory of the song at all. I didn't understand how I could remember almost the entire discography of Riverfenix/Fenix TX and yet not remember this song that so many people seem to have memorized. It's from a movie I didn't watch and didn't really get popular until a few years after the movie, which was already at the tail end of my fandom (or, depending on how you frame it, when pop-punk really started to suck). Got it.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:00 AM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

i remember seeing Kristen Kreuk grinding on Matt Damon and was aghast at what they've done to my precious Lana Lang
posted by numaner at 10:38 AM on August 20, 2018

It’s basically a series of sketches, but it has Thomas Lennon as a very angry silver-painted mime.

Let that be your guide.

Never seen the movie myself, but I found this scene on Youtube. I certainly LOL'd.
posted by NoMich at 11:01 AM on August 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

On the topic of Matt Damon’s legacy, this part of the piece is still cracking me up:

Schaffer: Matt even said, “I don’t get it. I was Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley, I was Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan, Jason Bourne in the Bourne Identity, and people walk up to me all the time and just go, ‘Scotty doesn’t know!’”
posted by dr_dank at 11:11 AM on August 20, 2018 [12 favorites]

Metafilter: This is a fantastic use of everyone’s time.
posted by ckape at 11:18 AM on August 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

You know how, on movie nights with a group of friends, you're sometimes deciding on the lowest common denominator - in terms of everyone's individual taste - and therefore organically veer towards low(er)brow entertainment? For me this was Eurotrip, one fateful evening 14 years ago.

And although I would never say it's a "good" movie (or propose it outside this particular circle of friends), it was enjoyable enough that we'd watch it not just this once, but also second time. And then a third time, when we couldn't decide on something else. And soon we began quoting the movie to each other and put it on whenever we couldn't agree on any other movie (if just to have something running in the background) .

sigh

So yeah, this is probably the movie I've seen most times in my life, and definitely more times than I feel comfortable admitting...
posted by bigendian at 11:19 AM on August 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

The recurring "I'm never drinking again", the fake legal intern job, and the younger brother who knows German better than the older brother who has been taking it for several years are clever gags for a dumb movie.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:21 AM on August 20, 2018

Never seen the movie myself, but I found this scene on Youtube . I certainly LOL'd.

Oh man, not a mime and I think not Thomas Lennon, so I remembered pretty much all of that wrong except how funny it was
posted by schadenfrau at 11:35 AM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

And although I would never say it's a "good" movie (or propose it outside this particular circle of friends), it was enjoyable enough that we'd watch it not just this once, but also second time. And then a third time, when we couldn't decide on something else. And soon we began quoting the movie to each other and put it on whenever we couldn't agree on any other movie (if just to have something running in the background) .

This sound almost exactly like my (and a few friends) slide into Valley Girl. I've lost count how many times I've seen that movie but the "No, but your face is!" line as delivered by Nic Cage in his 3D glasses still gets used on an almost daily basis by me.

Don't try to fight it, friend, just relax and remember all of the wonderful brain cells that you killed during that process.
posted by NoMich at 11:38 AM on August 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

EuroTrip is fun, but if you liked it you should watch the superior Sex Drive.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:18 PM on August 20, 2018

The whole "Scotty doesn't know" scene is such a perfectly directed scene, though. One beat that lingers too long or one too over the top reaction from Scotty and it doesn't work. But he totally sells the "Yep, this is happening, this is the worst night of my life" hangdog without overplaying it. Matt Damon is, of course, divine. Kristin Kreuk sells the hell out of it.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:27 PM on August 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

I never knew anything about this movie but have always loved this song as a sot of guilty pleasure. How great to find out there's a huge backstory!
posted by jessamyn at 12:43 PM on August 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best song about cheating. So catchy!

I had this on my ipod for so long and was kind of embarrassed because it's from this pretty awful movie, but the song is just good mean-spirited fun.
posted by graventy at 5:39 PM on August 20, 2018

Look Damon gets this to bear and Affleck gets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw3jMPjAcwg
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:48 PM on August 20, 2018

i remember seeing Kristen Kreuk grinding on Matt Damon and was aghast at what they've done to my precious Lana Lang

Kristen Kreuk is a huge part of why that scene works, yet she's hardly mentioned in the article. Lame.
posted by Chuckles at 7:11 PM on August 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

I was already in my 30s when this movie came out, so well past the target audience for a raunchy teen sex comedy. It also seems to me (could be misremembering) that there was a dearth of Something-Trip movies coming out at the time, so it didn't even seem very original a concept. Frankly, I'm not even sure how I ended up watching it; I never would have rented it, so it must have been on Netflix streaming or HBO while I was bored and my wife was asleep.

It's way funnier than I would have ever assumed from the title and ads. Just delightfully weird and out there. And of course as soon as it was over I immediately downloaded "Scotty Doesn't Know" which is still on my phone in regular rotation today.
posted by The Gooch at 7:35 PM on August 20, 2018

librarianamy: Also, perfect use of Vinnie Jones

Everything involving soccer hooligans in this movie is perfect.

Also:

"I'll drive this truck off a cliff before I ever go back to Berlin"

"A NICKEL. You see this? I QUIT. I open my OWN hotel."

"Mi scuzi!"

The robot fight! Arthur Frommer! The worst twins ever!

Eurotrip is wonderful in its badness, and I love it so very much. I thank my ex-wife for introducing it to me - quotes from it still litter our communication to this day.
posted by hanov3r at 10:32 AM on August 21, 2018

Oh man, not a mime and I think not Thomas Lennon

It's JP Manoux, whose IMDB biography foolishly includes no specific mention of "Robot Man" and is clearly written by a disinterested third party:

In 2006, J.P. joined the ensemble of "ER," recurring as surgical resident Dustin Crenshaw. It would prove to be a shrewd casting move, widely regarded as the single most significant factor in returning the venerable series to its original acclaim, prestige, and sex appeal.

posted by Etrigan at 11:13 AM on August 21, 2018 [3 favorites]

Tom Lennon (from Reno 911!) reports that he is often mistakenly credited with the performance.
posted by NormieP at 10:12 PM on August 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

My first trip out of the country ever was to Eastern Europe in 2004 and the Bratislava scenes nailed it.

between this and Justified Jacob Pitts must have a clause in his contract where he gets all the best lines
posted by wheek wheek wheek at 7:32 PM on September 19, 2018