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These Walt Disney Treasures collections are always something - even if the programming they contain isn't exceptionally exciting, the way Buena Vista raids their archives to not simply give us hard-to-find relics from Disney's non-animated-cinematic past, but to give each endeavor a collectible thrill. These two Zorro packages, for example, come in neato tins, and have pins and certificates of authenticity in them: They're not just DVD releases, they're DVD-themed gift boxes. And there's no better way to enjoy the embryonic Disney incarnations of everybody's favorite masked bandit than on these Zorro: The Complete First and Second Season box sets.

Here's the set-up: In the early 1800s, things are shaky in southern California. The state has not officially joined the United States, and corruption and banditry are rampant. A bigwig of the area, Don Alejandro de la Vega (George J. Lewis) is so freaked out by the threat of impending doom that he insists his son Diego (Guy Williams) cut short his schooling in Spain and return to the homestead to keep out the bad guys. But Diego doesn't want to help out in the normal way - he instead concocts an alter ego, a suave, mysterious character by the name of Zorro.

And as we breeze through these DVD sets, we find Zorro fight bad guys with increasingly-evolved savvy and drive. First there's the nasty Captain Monastario (Britt Lomond), who is one of the greediest, abhorrent men around, and the first ten or fifteen episodes of Zorro's first season revolve around bringing this jackass down. But after the Captain is served justice, an enigmatic adversary by the name of The Eagle comes to town, and Zorro has to spend the second of half of the show's first season besting The Eagle's henchmen in an attempt to have a showdown with the man himself. Season two doesn't have the same kind of singular bad guy story ethic - instead, we follow Zorro on mini-adventures in each episode. Diego heads to Monterey for a while, and when he returns to Los Angeles, we get a bastion of guest stars who accompany Zorro on his altruistic deeds (Lee Van Cleef, Annette Funicello (!), Cesar Romero).

At the end of the day, these two Zorro sets are just plain fun. They may not hold a potential for attracting young viewers of today used to whip-pan, MTV-style action, but for any viewer with a sweet tooth for old-fashioned adventure pictures, these Zorro episodes are top-notch. And these collectible tins are great advents for devotees of the show - they're another jewel in the Walt Disney Treasures crown.

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