Zorro - The Legend Through The Years

The New World Zorro
        1990 to 1993
Duncan Regehr is Don Diego de la Vega and Zorro Patrice Martinez is Victoria Escalante James Victor is Sgt. Jaíme Mendoza
Michael Tylo is Alcalde Luís Ramone John Hertzler is Alcalde Ignacio De Soto Juan Diego Botto is Felipe
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is Don Alejandro de la Vega, 1990 Henry Darrow is Don Alejandro de la Vega, 1990-1993 Toronado is Zorro's horse
Episode #1 Opening Credits Music
Episodes #2-88 Opening Credits Music
End Credits Music (Short Version)
End Credits Music (Long Version) 		Season 1 Episode Summaries
Season 2 Episode Summaries
Season 3 Episode Summaries
Season 4 Episode Summaries
The New World Zorro series will soon be released on DVD.  Please visit my Zorro blog for more information.

Until the series is released on DVD this fall, please understand that all DVDs of this series that are available in English as originally aired are bootlegs, and please quit buying them!  You are jeopardizing the DVD release by continuing to give these people business.  The bootleg DVDs are of inferior quality.  All DVDs offered for sale that use graphics from this site are bootlegs of inferior quality, and I have nothing to do with them.  I do not sell bootlegs!

This adaptation of the Zorro legend is very similar to the Disney series but does have several very important differences.  Zorro's helper is now a young boy named Felipe who is mute but not deaf.  The name of Zorro's horse has changed from Tornado to Toronado.  Zorro has an ongoing love interest, Victoria Escalante, who is a very outspoken, independent woman who runs the pueblo's tavern.  Victoria has no interest in Don Diego, who is like a brother to her.

The series begins with a regular episode in which Zorro saves Victoria from hanging for a murder that she did not commit.  The explanation of how Diego becomes Zorro does not occur until nearly halfway through the first season in a four-part storyline.  During these episodes, appropriately titled "The Legend Begins," Zorro has been injured and recalls how he became Zorro through a series of flashbacks.

Like the Disney version, Diego is attending the university in Madrid when he receives notice from his father that he must return home.  Rather, his instructor Sir Edmund receives the message and tells Diego the news.  When Diego returns to Los Angeles, he finds that the alcalde is levying huge taxes on the poor and jailing anyone who tries to stop him.  Diego realizes very quickly that he must do something, but that he must work anonymously.  Diego is inspired by hearing Sgt. Mendoza talk about how a soldier's greatest enemy is fear and that the unknown causes fear.  Diego also is inspired by a fox he sees in the cave adjacent to the de la Vega hacienda.  He reflects on the fox's cunning and how the fox is hunted for its fur but still manages to survive.  Diego creates Zorro and begins fighting oppression.

This version of Zorro is different in that Don Diego is now a gentle man of the sciences who also loves to read books, paint, and write poetry; these qualities reflect true facets of Don Diego's personality and are not an act.  What nobody suspects is that Don Diego has another side to his personality; the side that is determined to fight injustice and oppression as Zorro.

Felipe is the only person who knows Zorro's true identity.  Diego has kept his secret from everybody, including his father.  Don Alejandro is disappointed in his son and wishes Diego were more like Zorro.  Victoria waits for the day when she will finally know Zorro's true identity and can marry him.  The Alcalde can think of nothing else but capturing Zorro and putting an end to Zorro's meddlesome ways.

For more complete information, please visit www.newworldzorro.com.

Comments:

The New World Zorro pays tribute to previous versions of Zorro in several episodes:

  • During the episodes "A Woman Scorned," "Like Father, Like Son," and "The Arrival," Zorro disguises himself under a priest's robes, an idea used in several previous versions of Zorro.

  • During the episode "An Explosive Situation," Zorro and Sgt. Mendoza slice through candles at the beginning of a swordfight, just as Zorro and his opponents did in the 1940 and 1974 films.

  • The episode "Like Father, Like Son" parallels the storyline of the short-lived series Zorro and Son; Don Alejandro has amnesia and thinks he is Zorro but has trouble performing well due to his age.  An added point of interest is that Henry Darrow also played the aging Zorro in the Zorro and Son series.

  • During the episode "The Jeweled Sword," Zorro tricks Sgt. Mendoza into thinking he is still in the room by propping a sword up against his back and then leaving; this same trick was used in the 1940 and 1974 films.

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The sound files on this site are linked with permission to sound files at www.newworldzorro.com.

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