I don't see how they'd fubar the set that badly. Really, I don't even want to see the colorized versions anywhere on the set: not as extras, not on the cover...nowhere.
I'll buy any treasure they release. Nice to hear these are continuing. I'd like to see more of those legacy ones too, whatever that series that TRUE LIFE ADVENTURES came out in. They could do a run of educational films under that banner.
It's kind of mind boggling and downright silly that they won't release one of their classics, i.e., "Song of the South," which has nothing in it any worse than "Gone With the Wind" has.
Plus it's a gentler movie than Gone With the Wind. It appears that Song of the South is sold in France exclusively by the Disney theme park there. At least that's what a website claims that offers the DVD as an import. Someone said it's a bootleg but it sure looks authentic to me. I plan to buy it after the holidays. I will post the link if anyone wants to look over the website.
Assuming Zorro is included in the next Treasures wave, I'm expecting it to be the hour long episodes. It's about the right size for a Treasures and would come out probably about the time they were finishing up season two for the club.
Have you seen Viewmaster's 3-D slides of Disney's Zorro? Viewmaster released two different 3-D sets, or six reels of 3-D slides.
Viewmaster's Zorro is interesting for two reasons. First, the spectacular stereoscopic photography makes you realize how great this series would have looked as a 3-D feature film. Second, the slides are in color, whereas the program was monochrome. So we get to see the natural color behind the scenes. The color pallette is designed for monochrome filming, with set walls, props and costumes co-ordinated in different shades of black, white, gray, and brown. This is how it really looked on the set, a simpler and entirely different palette than the colorized version.
I think Disney has been playing Zorro too close to the vest. Time to just release the program with its beautiful monochrome photography in box-sets that everybody can buy. Perhaps a colorized version, too, for those who prefer it.
It is a bootleg. The transfer comes from the Hong Kong LD release which doesn't include the burned in subtitles at the start of each song like the Japense LD release.
When push comes to shove it seems that these (major) DVD distribution companies always release the dullest, most lackluster and least interesting tv properties in their possession.
ZORRO (ABC 1957-59) is another rarity in my top 10 tv series want list but in the interim there were also 4 hour long ZORRO segments produced for the WALT DISNEY PRESENTS (ABC 1954-61) tv series that could all be handily packaged together in a WALT DISNEY TREASURES collection.
These segments consist of:
01) "El Bandido" (30/10/1960) 02) "Adios El Cuchillo" (06/11/1960) 03) "The Postponed Wedding" (01/01/1961) 04) "Auld Acquaintance" (04/02/1961)
Perhaps the two ZORRO tv episode compilation films THE SIGN OF ZORRO (1961) and ZORRO THE AVENGER (1962) could also be included (or failing that the still outstanding ELFEGO BACA segments).
At the very least let's get something positive started here! How about it Disney?! I'm sure that the late Walt Disney would certainly approve.
Zorro is sufficiently popular and in demand to anchor the next wave. Disney generally crams at least 2.5 hours onto a Treasures disc. Some discs run 3 or 4 hours. All four hour-long episodes could conceivably fill 1 disc. Two or three feature-length edits lasting roughly 90 minutes could fill the second disc. Or maybe the feature length edits -- I think there's five of them altogher including the origin story The Sign of Zorro, Zorro and the Mountain Men with co-star Annette Funicello, Zorro and the Eagle, and The Secret of El Zorro -- will fill both discs, instead of the hour-long episodes. Disney is probably mulling over the possibilities now.
Zorro will be a definite buy for me. I don't own many of the treasure sets because I came across the line late and missed a lot of them but I loved the ones I did get. I don't want to pay through the nose for the ones I missed through third party sellers. I hope we get more Spin and Marty and/or The Hardy Boys this year, if not, then in the next wave.