1960's DISNEYLAND TRAVEL POSTER

DISNEY CROSS STITCH PATTERNS

I have made several cross stitch patterns from classic Disney images and they are available at my blogs at download free cross stitch and cross stitch fan. Just click on the tag Disney in the sidebars of the blogs.

LATE 1950'S CHRISTMAS COMIC BOOKS

EARLY 1950s DISNEY CHRISTMAS COMIC BOOKS

DISNEY COMIC BOOK TIE-INS

Disney started cross promoting their creations early. Books, comic books and merchandise were common for Disney movies and TV shows.

MORE ZORRO COMIC BOOKS

ZORRO COMIC BOOKS

Along with the popularity of Zorro on television, the comics were widely distributed also. Disney usually released comic books based on their movies and TV shows and these are some of the Zorro titles. The comic books continued even after the series was cancelled.

ZORRO TV SERIES

Zorro was created by Johnston McCulley in 1919. The pulp fiction hero, Don Diego de la Vega, lived in the Spanish colonies in California. Don Diego was a nobleman with the secret identity of Zorro, which means Fox in Spanish. Don Diego disguises himself with a mask and dressing all in black and goes out into the night to defend the downtrodden from various villains. During the day, Don Diego presented himself as a Dandy and a coward so he would not be associated with Zorro.

In all there were more than 60 stories published by McCulley, which were very popular. The first Zorro film was made in 1920, starring Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro. Zorro is very athletic and skilled with a blade, knife and whip, so he was a good part for the athletic Fairbanks. There were several Zorro films before the character got the Disney treatment in 1957.

The series premiered in October, 1957 and ran until July, 1959. There were 78 ½ hour episodes. In the 1960-1961 season there were also 4 hour long episodes on Walt Disney Presents. Guy Williams, who is perhaps better known for his role on Lost In Space, performed the dual role of Don Diego de la Vega and Zorro. Gene Sheldon played Diego’s servant Bernardo. Bernardo is sometimes just comic relief but he is also an able spy. Bernardo is mute but can communicate very well with gestures.

Also in the cast is Don Diego’s father, played by George J. Lewis, who only learns later in the show that his son is Zorro. Rounding out the cast was Henry Calvin who played Sergeant Garcia, the local law enforcement. He tries to catch Zorro but is pretty ineffectual and doesn’t come close to catching him.

The show was quite popular but there was a dispute between Disney and ABC about ownership of the series. The actors went onto other projects and Disney retained ownership of the series, which is still broadcast once in awhile.

1952 CHRISTMAS COMIC BOOKS

Disney started producing comic strips for newspapers in the early 1930's and by 1940 the strips were made into comic books. Stories were also written exclusively for the comic books and the titles were published into the 21st century. Christmas editions of the comic books were issued for many years.