of the Soviet Union, Westerns began to reappear in Czechoslovakia, with films such as High Noon, The Big Country, and The Magnificent Seven screened in theatres. Jiří Brdečka, a prolific Czech screenwriter and satirist, created the Lemonade Joe character in a 1940 serial, a parody of dime novels commissioned by the popular magazine Ahoj na neděli. As the serial progressed, however, the target of the satire shifted from dime novels to Western epics; Brdečka was a self-professed fan of Westerns, citing Stagecoach, Wells Fargo (1937), and Frontier Marshal (1939) as the films that sparked his interest in the genre. Brdečka also wrote a nonfiction work about the American frontier, Kolty bez pozlátka (1956), de-mythologizing the iconic Western figures of Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, and Jesse James. The Lemonade Joe stories were adapted as a stage play in 1946, which was a pronounced popular success. The stories also inspired the 1949 stop-motion animation short film Song of the Prairie (where the Lemonade Joe theme song, "Sou Fár Tu Jú Aj Mej", appeared for the first time) as well as two other animated films: Dušan Vukotić's Cowboy Jimmie (Yugoslavia, 1957) and Witold Giersz's Maly Western ("The Little Western," Poland, 1961). Filming The Stetson City facades were built at the Czech film studios at Barrandov. Location shooting was done near Karlštejn Castle, in a former quarry that had been nicknamed "Amerika" since the nineteenth century for its similarity to the American West. An authentic Smith & Wesson gun, used as a prop by Joe, was borrowed from a local museum and restored especially for the film. In creating a filming style, director Oldrich Lipský was inspired by silent comedy films, from which he borrowed numerous effects, including film tinting, slow motion, and fast motion. Brdečka's experience as an animator, often in collaboration with Jiří Trnka, led to several effects and ideas derived from animation being incorporated into the film, including animated smoke rings and dotted lines for bullet paths, freeze frames for dramatic effect, and even a reference to the Acme Corporation from the Looney Tunes cartoons. The film includes specific parodic tributes to Western silent film actors such as William S. Hart and Tom Mix, as well as "singing cowboy" stars like Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, and Fred Scott. The film also evokes numerous other films, including Louis Feuillade's silent film serials, the 1911 Jack Conway Western Arizona Bill, and