The Dudesons
Extreme Duudsonit is a group of men from Seinäjoki, Finland who have had TV shows on national TV where they perform stunts partly in the same way as Jackass on MTV, however they were not inspired by the American show cause it has not yet been aired when the first set of Extreme Duudsonit episodes were recorded in 2000. The name is in Finglish, a correct English version would be "Extreme Dudesons".
The group consists of Jukka Hildén (1980), Jarno "Jarno2" Leppälä (1979), H-P Parviainen (1981) and Jarno "Jarno1" Laasa (1979) who are all friends since their childhood. Jarno1 bought a video camera in 1993 and started shooting partying, extreme snowboarding and extreme downhill cycling videos. In 1999 Jarno1 moved to Helsinki to study at the university where he stayed for a half year, he then started working at the tv station MoonTV as a camera man and editor. When working at MoonTV he got the idea to make an own TV show, he thaught since people had always enjoyed his home made videos why wouldn't they work on TV?
The first episode of Extreme Duudsonit was aired on MoonTV on January 25, 2001. The episodes were presented as world tours where they made different stunts at famous places around the world such as Las Vegas and Mount Everest, however it was not difficult to figure out that it was just places in and around Seinäjoki they were shooting at. ED quickly became the most popular show on MoonTV. The first season was rerun on the larger TV channel Nelonen in the summer of 2001. In 2002 the second season (second world tour) of ED was shown on Nelonen.
In the summer of 2002 the guys toured and performed a live show together with the band The Odorants. In 2002 they were also elected as the media persons of the year by the readers of the most popular magazine among Finnish young people, Suosikki.
Next winter three of the guys went on a bar show tour, H-P could not go with them because of an injured leg. In the spring of 2003, world tour 3 was aired. The guys performed on stage together with Sleepy Sleepers at the big summer festivals Ruisrock and Ankkarock.
On September 9, 2004 the first episode of their new TV show called Duudsoni elämää (Duudson life) was aired, again at Nelonen. Duudsoni elämää consists of a total of 17 episodes.
World Tour 1, 2 and 3 has been released on DVD.