Zorro

Zorro (also known as Disney's Zorro) is an American action-adventure Western television series produced by Walt Disney Productions and starring Guy Williams. Based on the Zorro character created by Johnston McCulley in his 1919 novella, the series premiered on October 10, 1957, on ABC. The final network broadcast was July 2, 1959. Seventy-eight episodes were produced, and four hour-long specials were aired on the Walt Disney anthology series between October 30, 1960, and April 2, 1961. The series is set in Los Angeles of 1820, when it was still part of Spanish California and before Mexican independence. Zorro aids Hispanic settlers and indigenous peoples oppressed by the rulers. A remastering, in which color was added, was released in 1992. Plot For most of its run, Zorros episodes were part of continuing story arcs, each about thirteen episodes long. It had a structure similar to a serial. The first of these chronicles the emergence of Zorro / Diego to California in 1820, having returned from studying in Spain at the behest of his father, Don Alejandro, to help depose the greedy and cruel local Comandante, Captain Enrique Sánchez Monastario. After Monastario's final defeat, in the second storyline, Zorro must uncover and counter Magistrado Carlos Galindo, who is part of a conspiracy to take over rule of California. The third story arc concerns the leader of that conspiracy, José Sebastián de Varga, a shadowy figure known as "The Eagle". It is revealed that Varga intends to make a huge profit by turning California over to another country, which had its own interests on the West Coast. Season one concludes with Varga's death.