Up until very recently, very little South
Africans even knew who The Dudesons were,
had their names been mentioned during some random chit-chat,
or whatever. ‘The Dudesons?’
you might be asking yourself right about now. I know…it’s
tragic really. Not even knowing who The Dudesons
really are. I used to be one of them. But don’t worry.
I’m here to fix everything.
I managed to get a hold of The
Dudesons and was pretty stoked when Jarppi
agreed to answer some of my questions! Pretty damn awesome!
The rest of group consists of Jarno, Jukka, HP and
Britney - their pet pig.
If you still have absolutely no idea who
I’m talking about, then let me break it down for you:
The Dudesons are a group of performance
artists/stuntmen hailing from Finland,
and if you don’t know where Finland is, then
go check it out in an atlas. It is way up north and I hear
it is pretty cold up there!
Now, if you thought that Jackass
was by far the most intense and outrageous stunt-show you
have ever seen, think again. And, just in case you were
thinking that this has to be some kind of silly European-Jackass-rip-off
– No. It’s not, okay. These guys have been doing
it for way longer than the guys from Jackass,
and it’s a fact!
Another thing that sets The Dudesons
apart from the rest is that the four of them have been best
friends since childhood:
“Me, Jukka and Jarno went to
same elementary school and became friends at the age of
10 and 11 (me and Jarno being year older than Jukka). It
was the same year when we also got to know HP from snowboarding
and stealing apples from same neighbor.”
They started playing around with filming
little home videos of themselves doing stunts and later
started making skateboarding videos. “Our first
VHS-video came out ‘97. And the first season’s
first episode aired January 2001.”
 |
"There's
no place like home!"
From left to right: Jarno, Britney, Jarppi and Jukka
infront of the Ranch |
Tell us about the Ranch.
It was the best place to live for all
of us, heaven on earth! You know the kind of place where
you can do what ever you want and nobody would whine about
it. We lived there for about a year before it burned down.
It was raining outside so I decided to make a fire on our
“library” room table, you can guess the rest!
But man’s gotto eat, right?
We know that HP is actually a teacher. Does any of the other
Dudesons have a ‘hidden talent’ of sorts?
All of us have special talent. We’re
kind a like the Fantastic Four, except five.
- Britney can undress any girl just by looking at her.
- Jukka was raised among the best knife fighter in the world,
in Härmä!
- I can almost touch my toes standing up.
- HP can drive a bike hands behind his back.
- Jarno thinks he’s smart!
One of the things that really separate
you guys from the rest is your absolute disregard for your
own safety - always pushing it to a next level. Injury would
have to be an inevitable factor if this had to be a person’s
day job. Some of you guys have actually been black-listed
by Finland’s medical insurance companies. What has
been each of you guys' most memorable injuries to date?
- I lost my thumb wrestling a bear.
- We seriously think Jukka lost his ability to have children,
after he put his testicles into a mousetrap.
- HP jumped a moped 30meters into a lake and broke his leg
from three different spots.
- Jarno has been burned many times severely, cause he uses
Jukka as his barber. Jukka has a habit of lighting Jarnos
hair on fire.
We’ve heard a couple of stories
on how you lost your thumb. One of those stories involved
a bear! How exactly did you loose it?
It was a bear attack in the wild woods of Finland.
I guess the bear was in the wrong place at the wrong tome,
cause I made really nice boots out of it.
 |
The
Dudesons and The Human Dartboard |
On The Dudesons Movie
we see Jarno being shot with a pellet rifle, which looked
really gnarly. How many shots exactly did he take that day?
We can’t even count that many. But that’s
the great thing about Jarno. Even tough he’s the mastermind
who films and edits everything he’s still willing
to put his ass on line by doing things like that. He took
one for the team so to speak.
The Human Dartboard – has
it ever gone wrong?
Yes, Jukka has missed couple of time…
Sometimes he doesn’t hit the target that’s been
painted on my stomach and hits me in the chest. That’s
kind a gnarly cause you can feel the dart hitting bone.
Oh and once he pierced my nipple. But these doesn’t
mean that they wouldn’t count as a Human Dartboard.
I know that, as soon as you start breaking more that one
bone in a very short period of time, you kinda start keeping
count. What is HP’s bone-breaking-count?
- Left leg broken from three different spots: Did a
huge motorcycle jump in to a lake
- Right angle broken twice: Snowboarding and skateboarding
- Left angle broken twice: Jumped of a 15feet high cliff,
- Dislocated left shoulder: Face landing from top of a car
- Collarbone left broken: Snowboarding
- Neck broken: In a stunt called neck breaker, you sweep
somebody’s legs under him with a rope and a motor
bike
- Right knee broken: Snowboarding
- Concussions
Tell us about Jarno’s passion
for filming and editing. He is obviously highly involved
in the stunt department, but even more so behind the scenes.
What exactly is the part that he plays in The Dudesons;
especially his part in Rabbit Films?
He is the founder of Rabbit Films
and he’s the one who came up with the idea to make
our own TV show. When we’re filming he really loves
to play with the right angels and he always has a clear
vision in his head how all should look after it’s
edited. But at the end of the day his main thing is to make
the rest of us look good on tape!
 |
"One
of the first promo photo's we took!"
From left to right: Jukka, Jarppi, HP and Jarno |
Do you guys still perform live
a lot?
Not lately. Last year was the first year that
we did something internationally and we focused on that.
But we still do live shows every once in awhile. We’re
actually looking forward doing live shows outside Finland
in the future!
How did Britney join the family?
After we found out that Jarno wasn’t
as smart as he was pretending to be. We had to find fifth
Dudeson who would raise our overall IQ.
And who would be better for that than a pig!
How long has the feud between you
and Mr. Hitler been going on and where did it all begin?
It’s been going on for a long long time.
Ever since he was still living in the same neighborhood
with us. He’s the kind of guy everybody has, the guy
nobody likes cause he objects everything. He didn’t
let us play or do anything near his place and he break our
toys, so as we grew up we took our revenge on him.
I’ve been seeing a lot on the forums on how
impressed people were of the soundtrack to The Dudesons
Movie. How was it decided upon, and what music do you
guys listen to?
There are lots of good Finnish bands that are
rocking with a kick as sound, so we like to use a lot of
that. And of course while doing it; maybe help the bands
a little as well. If I’m listening to something it
has to be Rock’n Roll or Heavy!
Has Jukka ever slammed his testicles
in a mousetrap again?
Actually he did it couple of times. We didn’t
get the first time on tape the way we wanted to so he had
to do it again.
Any Finish words you can teach
us?
- Isäntä = The man of the house
- Emäntä = The woman of the house
- Tissit = Tits
- Hyvä perse = Nice ass
- Sika = Pig
- Puukko = Knife
- Perkele = Great grandfather of Satan
In a sentence:
- Voi perkele mun talo palaa! = Perkele!
My house is on fire!
Any message to your fans in South
Africa and the visitors to MazeWorldWide.com?
Love your country! Once been there and definitely want
to come back!
Don’t do what we do! Do what your mama says!
www.TheDudesons.com
www.myspace.com/thedudesons
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