To those somehow unaware Zorro is basically a masked crusaders / vigilante/hero, he wields a sword and fights corruption and evil in Spanish California or Mexican California it’s usually dependent on interpretation.
Now in America Zorro is kind of unfairly forgotten. We haven’t had a proper Zorro movie in over 20 years. I wouldn’t call myself a huge Zorro fan but I like him. he provides the kind of swashbuckling old fashioned fun Hollywood used to always do.
Before everything became complex convoluted and all about cinematic universes Zoro provided a simple tale of good versus evil with some cool sword fighting to thrown in.
Since Zorro is a Spaniard in Spanish or Mexican California it makes sense to me why he would naturally be appealing to Latin America fighting for the downtrodden against oppressive and corrupt rulers (Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are all probably looking livid now), since the Lion’s share of Latinos are hispanophone.
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It’s unfair how Zorro is forgotten in the states.
I mean in a day and age where everything has to be complex convoluted synthetic universes I think old-fashioned swashbuckling fun such as himself would be a welcome change of pace.
I love the movie with Antonio Banderas and I even made my own rogues gallery for Zorro. I feel like if he had more recurring colorful rogues gallery he would be remembered more.
Zorro was a Californio Mexican and he was very popular in Mexico as the series portrayed lots of Mexican culture and history
Oh I always loved Zorro since I was a kid when the 90s movie came out, I even started watching the old Disney serials.
I don’t think he’s particularly popular in Mexico because he’s had no real media for 30 years. It might be time for a reboot.
I think i heard Argentina was the one that really got into Zorro back in rhe day.
Btw that whole ethnic representation thing usually doesn’t work the same way for us. Goku or Pegasus Seiya would be seen as one of our own over Zorro or idk Blue Beetle.
I don’t have cable TV anymore but I would not be surprised if it’s still running here.
I saw the series in color during my childhood and later I found out it was originally black and white.
The actor loved Argentina, lived and passed away here. He even volunteered to fight on the Malvinas war.
The love and appreciation was mutual tbh.
The TV show was very popular when it aired. I saw it when I was little around 2000. Nowadays I don’t think there’s many young people that know him.
My dad was a big fan of Zorro here in Chile. And i grow up with the movies of Antonio Banderas.
I just discovered the series recently, and still waiting for see them.
About the movies, i like it a lot. However, now that i’m “politically aware” i recognize the subtle propaganda about Americanism, critics about the Spanish Monarchy and the Californian membership in the US.
I know more or less about the history of Texas. How the anglo/german inmigration came to the land in the times of the Viceroyalty, how they influenced in the Texan war against Mexican central goverment, and how they influenced to join the US, and then the “Texano identity”, as a form of hispanic identity, gradually died until, some few old texanos who still speak their particular accent.
But i know almost nothing about California. I know the true history about the name, a bit of the spanish conquest. And that the anglo-german inmigration also affected the place but little more. What of the old, non-english, Californian identity remains? Majority of Hispanics in the us are late inmigrants. From the XIX, XX, and XXI century.
Zorro on PS5 ruined zorro for me. Absolute worse game of the generation
If your 40 or over you probably know Zorro. Nevertheless Zorras are really popular
I used to love zorro as kid. I also like that Antonio Banderas essentially carried on the role through puss in boots lol
Very popular. They still air it, but I don’t think people watch it. It’s a classic. I know the intro by heart.
The Duncan Regehr series were popular in Peru in the early 90s. Before that, the black and white version would play a lot in the Saturday afternoons.
After that the only other version people were aware of was the Antinio Banderas movie.
The show itself was good. Couldn’t care less if he was Mexican or Spaniard.
It was very popular, I don’t think it is anymore
It was kinda popular around 15 or 20 years ago, not terribly popular but people knew about it. I’m not sure about it more recently.
Even less popular than Superman.
Very among old people. Still airing i think.
There were cartoons in Brazil when I was a kid (one American, the other Japanese). Golden age Hollywood movies also made the rounds. There was also a Lone Ranger movie marketed as Zorro, but I found it boring.
It used to be popular, now it’s kinda Zilenials and above, if I ask a kid today who is Zorro they would probably think it’s a nickname for beetle, besouro in Portuguese, but sometimes pronounced as bizorro
I remember Zorro being popular in the 90s.., and with the Antonio Banderas movies, but that was like a hundred years ago.
No more than Luffy
I never grew up with them but i think theres potential in the heros from the pulp era like Zorro if they were adapted with passion for the character today
Popular in the 90s, now forgotten.
Zorro is something pretty old. They used to have the show on TV until the mid-90s, and even then, it was seen as something old people would watch.
It’s like asking about Lassie or Flipper. I highly doubt people under 30 would even know they were a thing outside of references.
I remember a few kids in my preschool with Zorro costumes in the 80s’. We just thought he was a cool guy, regardless of the location or historical reasons.
Very today have airplay on national tv.With high scores of rating
Guy Williams had a very reciprocal love for my country, anyone who owned a TV has seen a rerun of his Zorro
I remember something we called las aventuras. I can’t remember if it was a show about El Zorro or someone similar. We loved it. If we weren’t watching it then it was because the power was out. I’m almost certain it wasn’t a super old show because I vaguely remember it being in color.
Why are we livid? Because we’d like El Zorro to fight our dictatorships?
Highly highly HIGHLY popular, specially between my parents generation (60 years old) and their children (40 years old). It’s yearly aired in open TV.
And a personal secret: for years I wished for years to practice fencing…
Very popular in Argentina, and reruns were still aired until very recently. I used to watch it on black-and-white TV in the seventies.
Even though the series portray fictional incidents from long ago and far away, it was always loved by the public here. And, as others have already pointed out, it also happens that Guy Williams liked it here, rooted for the country and lived here until his death.
Besides—as was always the case with old Disney productions—the series was neatly dubbed and had a splendid intro sung in Spanish that everyone knows by heart.
However, I don’t know if we liked Zorro because of his hero status, since we have watched endless reruns of other old US series. Historically, I think the most watched has been (surprise!), The Three Stooges. With Get Smart! in second place.
Zorro is widely known but seen as lame and for boomers.
It was just an American movie in the late 90s. Then there was a Mexican telenovela in the early 2000s too.
Growing up in the ’80’s in Mexico, Zorro was pretty famous. There were movies, TV shows, cartoons, comic strips, etc. I always took him as one of those characters that had been there forever and several generations knew well, like The Lone Ranger, Flash Gordon, Tarzan, etc. You could find all kinds of versions of those characters in different media made at different points in time and you could probably find a cartoon, show, movie, book and comic book about that character made each decade or so.
For example, I used to watch this cartoon called Defenders of the Earth that was about Flash Gordon and a team of other famous comic strip heroes teaming up to foil Ming the Merciless and his plans to take over the Earth. The roster included The Phantom and the magician Mandrake and his bodyguard Lothar, all of whom I’d seen before in their individual newspaper comic strips.
It blew my mind that this one time my grandma walked into the living room while I was watching the show and after watching with me for a couple of minutes she asked me if Narda, Mandrake’s girlfriend, was in the show, because she recognized him and Lothar. Now, I knew Narda because she was one of the main characters in Mandrake’s old school comic strip but she wasn’t in the show, and I was amazed to realize that my grandma knew these characters as well as me because she’d read those same comic strips when she was a girl back in the day.
A lot of those characters are no longer famous among young people and have been mostly forgotten in the 21st century, I’d say. While characters like Batman and Captain America are still going strong, some of those that served as their inspiration have become more obscure or niche. I mean, Zorro is a wealthy aristocrat who pretends to be a shallow socialite and fights crime with his superior fighting skills while wearing a mask and a cape, is helped by his loyal butler, and has a secret cave hideout under his mansion. I’m sure you’ve heard this story before except the main character isn’t Hispanic and favors boomerangs and martial arts over whips and swords. And The Scarlet Pimpernel did almost exactly the same thing as Zorro but during The French Revolution.
Hanna-Barberas’s quickdraw mcgraw character El Kabong was dubbed as El Cabazorro , there was I think some 70’s Zorro movie but never identified it as mexican related. And there was the Antonio Banderas movie.
There is a feline version of Zorro who is pretty popular now, including in the USA. he had 2 animation films and a cartoon series. If you excuse his debut in some parody film series of fairy tales, and only watch his content, you will recognize that He is the zorro everyone knows, again with a cat twist to add. Just search for Puss in boots
It used to be very popular.
The new tv show was pretty good and I recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it.