Editing Lemonade Joe (section)

=== Sources ===
Stories about the [[American frontier]], such as those by [[Karl May]] and [[Jack London]], had long been widely read in [[Central Europe]];{{sfn|Hames|2002}} May's influence in particular was crucial to the Eastern European imagination of the American West.{{sfn|Miller|2014|p=114}} American Western films had been popular in Czech theatres throughout the history of the [[First Republic of Czechoslovakia]], from its founding in 1918 until the [[German occupation of Czechoslovakia]] in 1939.{{sfn|Miller|2014|p=104}} During the occupation and throughout [[Joseph Stalin]]'s control of the [[Soviet Union]], Westerns were banned. In the early 1960s, during [[Nikita Khrushchev]]'s [[De-Stalinization]] 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.{{sfn|Miller|2014|p=105}}

Jiří Brdečka, a prolific Czech screenwriter and satirist,{{sfn|Hemelíková|2007}} created the Lemonade Joe character in a 1940 serial,{{sfn|Miller|2014|p=115}} a parody of [[dime novel]]s 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;{{sfn|Mléčková|2006|p=41}} Brdečka was a self-professed fan of Westerns, citing ''Stagecoach'', ''[[Wells Fargo (film)|Wells Fargo]]'' (1937), and ''[[Frontier Marshal (1939 film)|Frontier Marshal]]'' (1939) as the films that sparked his interest in the genre.{{sfn|Mléčková|2006|p=37}} 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]].{{sfn|Mléčková|2006|p=38}}

The ''Lemonade Joe'' stories were adapted as a stage play in 1946,{{sfn|Hames|2002}} which was a pronounced popular success.{{sfn|Johnston|2008}} The stories also inspired the 1949 [[stop-motion animation]] short film ''[[Song of the Prairie (Trnka film)|Song of the Prairie]]'' (where the ''Lemonade Joe'' theme song, "Sou Fár Tu Jú Aj Mej", appeared for the first time){{sfn|Mléčková|2006|p=39}} 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).{{sfn|Imre|2009|p=86}}