Zorro is an imaginary character developed by American pulp author Johnston McCulley, who appears in tales set in the peaceful Pueblo of Los Angeles. The Zorro character was based on a real Spanish dancer, Mijas de Leon. Zorro was a lovable character for many years, but not known to most Americans at the time. He suddenly appeared in a Zorro play demo and was instantly popular. Zorro's story was so exciting that it spawned a long line of related Zorro stories, one of which was adapted as a movie.
Zorro the Zorro was an unlucky fox who worked as a drinker at the saloon owned by his enemies, and where he met his friend Mijas de Leon. When the Zorro's boat crashed on the ocean, he quickly learned that he had no escape from the Masked Men. He was captured by them, along with Mijas, and thrown into the dungeon. Zorro, using his mask as a disguise, was able to slip out of the jail and meet up with his loyal friend, Sturgis Boggan.
Zorro and Boggan were locked in the Zorro Tunnels under the sea. Zorro discovered a mysterious box and opened it, discovering a magical golden light that allowed him to escape. Searching for a way to return to the surface, Zorro and Boggan came across a giant octopus and asked for passage. Although they were turned down, they were saved by Caliph, the Grand Vizier, who restored Zorro to his previous life. Zorro and Boggan traveled through many tunnels until they reached the site of a large fair, where they witnessed an explosion destroys much of the fair. This was when they learned that the evil wizard Mijas de Leon had resurrected Caliph as a devil and was controlling all the evil in the world using his new army.
Zorro and the other mermaids then went to rescue the weakened Caliph, but were again defeated. They were taken to the fortress of Zorro where they were put in prison while the evil wizard healed ailing Alhaurin and Mijas' daughter, Zeta-Jones, whom Zorro had last seen during their first appearance, and Alhaurin and Mijas prepared to attack the townsfolk once more. The townsfolk however, including the townsfolk's children, defended themselves and defeated the Zorro and the evil trio.
A year after the events of Zorro the Spanish speaking children of La Pleta de Soldeu came to live in Spain. When translated into English, the name Zorro means 'fox in Spanish'. In spite of this and other facts about Zorro the name has been very popular over the years and it is still used by some Spanish speaking countries. In modern times Zorro is the common name for a male-to-male 'trickster' or 'fox' characters in American cartoons. Many Americans have been known to use the name Zorro when referring to a trickster character such as the Simpsons' Springfield City police chief, who is called Zorro. Other examples are the Doctor Who's the rogue alien friends, the Silurian android Doctor Zorro, from the popular television series Doctor Who.
Zorro, the original masked vigilante was reintroduced to the world in 2021 with a feature-length film version starring Matt Damon and directed by Wes Anderson. In this version the mask Zorro wears has been digitally retouched to look like Zorro's native Mexican mask, but with a white face and a silver Zorro-style belt buckle. The film version of Zorro also includes two bonus Zorro comic book pages which tell the history of the masked Zorro character and introduce his sidekicks, Bart and Marge (Damon and Alex Cross). All three films of Zorro have been box-office successes in America and Mexico, as well as in many other international countries.