Zorro on DVD

The Disney Movie Club

Zorro fans have long looked for ways to collect the adventures of Zorro. Several VHS tapes were released in the past, but fans hoping for a complete set of episodes instead had to rely on old tapes copied off The Disney Channel. In 2004, the complete first season was released in France in a boxed set of DVDs, as described here. American audiences, though, were seemingly thwarted in their pursuit of DVD copies of the series. Letter writing campaigns and petitions failed to sway the Disney executives, and year after year Zorro remained conspicuously absent from the the Disney Home Video catalog.

Happily, this changed in August 2006 with the release of Zorro episodes from The Disney Movie Club. These DVDs were only available to members of the Club and were not available in stores. Each contains eight episodes of the series. As with the French versions, these are the colorized versions.

Let's take a look at the DVDs. Here's a look at the cover, insert and disk of the first two volumes:

Disney Movie Club cover

Disney Movie Club insert

Disney Movie Club disc

Disney Movie Club cover

Disney Movie Club insert

Disney Movie Club disc

The disks are rather plain when compared to the French versions, which feature color photos of Zorro in action.

Let's take a look now at the DVD contents. Here's the first thing you see on screen:

Season 1 menu

Not much of a menu screen, is it? While the flames were animated on the French versions, this screen is just a static shot of Zorro and Tornado. No options for soundtrack or subtitle (the DVD does have English subtitles available, but no other languages), nor any special features. The only options are to play the entire disk or to select individual episodes.. Here's a look at the two episode selection screens:

Season 1 menu

Season 1 menu

Disc 2 isn't much different:

Season 1 menu

Season 1 menu

Season 1 menu

In late 2008 Disney finally started releasing the second season on DVD in the United States, starting with Volumes 1 and 2. The rest of the season was finally announced in December 2008. Here's a look at the packaging for the first volume from Season 2:

Season 2 cover

Season 2 insert

Season 2 disc

The packaging is a bit more colorful for the second season, especially the DVDs themselves. Reflecting the switch to wider television screens as more people move to high definition sets, the DVDs have a wider aspect now for their menus.

Season 2 menu

Season 2 menu

Season 2 menu

Both seasons have long been sold out and are now longer available directly from Disney. They do show up on eBay and Amazon but can be quite expensive.

Note: Several Internet sites offer the complete series on DVD, but these are not authorized by Disney and reports are that quality can vary greatly, with most sets having the Disney Channel logo on the screen.


Site guide