Zorro – The Complete First And Second Season – Disney Treasures DVD Sets

Written on November 4, 2009 by Marc Eastman in Television

From the Disney vault of treasures comes one of television’s most brilliant classics, Zorro. Starring Guy Williams, Zorro now gets the deluxe treatment in two sets coming to you from the Walt Disney Treasures collection. Coming to you in separate 6-disc sets, the first and second seasons of the show are given the star treatment.

The latest addition to the celebrated Walt Disney Treasures, Zorro, makes its fully restored black & white DVD debut. All 78 episodes of the timeless classic will be included on two new six-disc sets–making up the ninth installment of the popular Walt Disney Treasures, and for the first time, will be housed in collectible black, numbered unique tin cases.

From 1957 to 1959, Disney’s Zorro was one of the most popular series on television starring Guy Williams, Henry Calvin, and Gene Sheldon. The show helped transform the literary character Don Diego de la Vega into the ultimate iconic, beloved swashbuckling masked hero of the time. The adventures of Zorro and his trusty steed Tornado have captivated audiences since their inception, gaining new audiences when it was re-aired on the Disney Channel in 1983 and re-colorizing the episodes in the 1990s. After the series conclusion, the Zorro adventures lived on from 1960 to 1961 on Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color in the form of a four-episode anthology series of hour-long Zorro specials, all of which are also included in Walt Disney Treasures Wave IX.

It’s actually quite amazing how well this show stands up, and it’s as fun to watch now as ever. The real glory days of Disney shine through in this fun-filled adventure show that mixes comedy, drama, and action with incredible precision.

Guy Williams pulls off the double character with ease and charm, and steps up equally to each role. Whether mild-mannered gentleman and scholar, or masked crusader, he has a screen presence as legendary as Zorro himself.

Fleshing out the show’s overall tone are Bernardo, mute (but not deaf) confidant to our hero, and Sergeant Garcia, the fat and bumbling “in” to the military force that will attempt to capture the masked man.

With Bernardo providing a certain casual levity, and many an overheard detail, the show manages a surprising amount of character/viewer camaradarie as Zorro and his most trusted friend work out conversations, hatch plans, and outmaneuver the ne’er-do-well du jour.

Garcia, on the other hand, moves us (generally) straight to an almost slapstick comic relief, such is his oafish, half-witted manner, and it is often delivered just when it is needed most. Chases, swashbuckles, and the giving of what fors are the serious adventure business we’re about here, and sometimes (consider this is the mid-50s) the audience not only needs to slow down, but needs a rest altogether. Garcia’s goofy manner, and interactions with Don Diego also gives the show a save, which keeps the military (who are after Zorro… Boo! Hiss!) from becoming demonized as a whole. This calculated approach gives the entire framework of the show more depth, and leaves more room to play in the grays of the society at large.

What’s most extraordinary about Zorro (after having now revisited it… again) is just how far ahead of the curve it was for its time in terms of overall writing, character development, and attention to the effort of really putting out something deserving of the treatment it now has. Fairly serious classic TV buff that I am, I can’t think of another show of the era (and beyond) and genre that did so much with its stories, or just plain tried so hard. Pick your adventure show from, say the 60s give or take, and the plots pretty quickly show themselves as being of a routine outline with certain points plugged in for any given episode. Not so here.

Given what we must work with (it’s Zorro… a sword may show itself), and the fairly limited options in some grand sense, it is beyond belief how complex a road we travel in 78 episodes.

Each set includes a collectible pin, limited-edition lithograph, and certificate of authenticity (this is a numbered run).

Both sets include exclusive introductions by Leonard Maltin.

Set 1 includes Zorro: El Bandido and Zorro: Adios El Cuchillo.

Set 2 includes Zorro: The Postponed Wedding and Zorro: Auld Acquaintance.

Rarely can a DVD release with very little in the way of special features get such a glowing endorsement from me, but the ability to own the complete collection of such a gem from television history is ludicrously worth the price of admission here. Believe me, you want to snatch this up while you can.