But the like bands and they're friends with some of the bands I listen to
The Dudesons are a stuntgroup of four Finnish friends. The Dudesons are best known from their TV shows and live performances. Their TV shows are combination of extreme stunts, comedy and reality.
History
The Dudesons consists of four members: Jukka Hilden (b. 1980), Jarppi Leppälä (b. 1979), Jarno Laasala (b. 1979) and Hannu-Pekka "HP" Parviainen (b. 1981). They were all born in the small town of Seinäjoki, Finland, and Jukka, Jarppi and Jarno became good friends since attending elementary school together.
The teenage Dudesons were heavy practitioners of snowboarding, skateboarding and downhill mountain biking. In the early 1990s, when Jarno got his first video camera, the group started shooting videos of their hobbies which eventually led to filming a variety of pranks and extreme stunts. They created VHS tapes which were filmed and edited by Jarno and subsequently sold them around until their reputation started to grow in Seinäjoki.
Original Finnish TV series
In January 2000, Jarno Laasala found work as an editor for a small cable TV-channel MoonTV. He saw a possibility to make his own show out of all the stunts the Dudesons had filmed. After finishing high school, the Dudesons set up their own production company called Rabbit Films. The group immediately began shooting a self-financed pilot episode for their own show.
This pilot was finished in August 2000, and the channel immediately green lighted the first season, titled as "Maailmankiertue" (Worldtour). The episodes started showing in January 2001, and the series became the most popular show on MoonTV. In September 2001, The Dudesons moved from MoonTV to Nelonen.
The 2nd season of the Extreme Duudsonit, Maailmankiertue 2, was first screened in 2002, and the same year The Dudesons were also elected as The Media Persons Of The Year by the readers of Finland’s most popular youth magazine Suosikki.
The 3rd (Maailmankiertue 3) and 4th (Duudsoni Elämää) seasons of Extreme Duudsonit ran respectively in 2003 and 2004. The 4th season saw the introduction of the 5th member of the Dudesons, a male pet pig named Britney (he was originally called Satan but they thought he was a she so changed his name to Britney, only to find out later that he was in fact a male pig), who has since then remained as an important character in The Dudesons TV-series. As the series progressed, it moved away from just being a stunt-based show and evolved into more of a varied reality comedy show.
Recurring stunts and segments on the English spoken version of the Dudesons includes: the "Human Dartboard," playing pranks on "Mr Hitler" and a vast array of other stunts with "absolute disregard for [their] own safety."
International career
In 2003, The Dudesons made a decision to start making English-language material in order to find international distribution. Their following series, Duudsoni Elämää, was shot both in Finnish and English. The material was then edited both into Finnish-language series, and English language series. The Finnish series ran in 2004, while the English series had its international debut at Australian Channel V in February 2006. The American debut was on SpikeTV on July 6, 2006.
By September 2007, The Dudesons Season 1 had been shown in 22 countries around the world, making it the most wide spread Finnish TV-series of all time. The second season began in Australia on May 20, 2008 on Channel V. By the year 2010, different Dudesons seasons have been seen in over 150 countries.
The Dudesons are also featured in hit movie Jackass 3D, alongside Johnny Knoxville. All four Dudesons were seen on the red carpet in Jackass 3D premier. The movie made an astonishing opening weekend of 50 million dollars.
Official Dudesons Website
Official Dudesons Facebook Page (english)
Official Dudesons Facebook Page (finnish)
Official Dudesons YouTube Page
