Prokouk, a stop-motion animation puppet made of wood,[1] is a sympathetic, irrepressible everyman character[2] with a bristling mustache, a long nose,[3] and a pork pie hat.
[4] The French newspaper Le Monde described the character as an "animated cousin" of Jacques Tati's character Monsieur Hulot,[5] and the catalogue of a 2001 Karel Zeman retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive suggested that Prokouk might be taken as Zeman's alter ego.
[4] The short films in which he appears are comic[6] with a didactic touch.
[1] The character first appeared in the 1946 short Podkova pro štěstí ("Horseshoe for Luck").
[9] The following table is based on information from the Karel Zeman Museum's filmography.