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Site History: A Little About Me and Why I Created This Site |
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I have always loved good, clean stories of adventure and romance, especially stories that are set in the past. I am an avid reader and would rather be reading than doing anything else. One of my favorite novels from childhood is The Witch of Blackbird Pond, a work of historical fiction set in colonial America. I loved reading Nancy Drew during my childhood years. Nancy was so important to me that I now collect old editions of Nancy Drew and other children’s series books, and yes, I do read them. Reading the old-fashioned stories from the 1930's and 1940's is a wonderful way to connect with the past and to escape life's problems.Unfortunately, Zorro was never part of my childhood. I have no doubt that Walt Disney’s Zorro would have been an important part of my childhood if I had ever had the chance to see it. As it is, I very nearly missed out on the New World Zorro. If not for one of those chance decisions one afternoon in 1992 when I was 20 years old, I would have probably never seen what quickly became my all-time favorite television show. It causes me to wonder how many other great television shows, movies, and books that I am missing out on because I have never been exposed to them. |
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During the summer of 1992, I was quite disenchanted with the news media and a lot of what was going on in the news. I already watched the Family Channel a bit as my mother had always loved The Waltons , a show about a family struggling to make ends meet during the depression era, and she had gotten me started watching the show. For me, the Family Channel was a safe-haven, a place where I didn’t have to think about the current events that were bothering me. One day I was feeling quite disgusted with that day's events and decided not to watch the evening news. It was 5:30 P.M. Central Daylight Time, and I switched the television to the Family Channel. At that time, the Family Channel had reruns of Zorro on Monday through Friday at 5:30 P.M. A chance decision introduced me to our hero. |
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I don’t recall what episode I saw that day. Based on the first episodes I recorded, I think it was probably "The Falcon." I know that the first show I saw had enough of an impact on me that I decided to forego the evening news the next night and watch the show again. By either the second or third night, I decided to record the shows, and I knew that I had to have ALL of the shows on tape. It didn’t take me long to decide how much I loved the show!The first shows that I recorded were "It’s a Wonderful Zorro," "The Marked Man," "Big Brother," and "To Be a Man." I was then able to watch "The Legend Begins," and it helped me to understand the premise of the series. By January 1993, I had managed to get the entire series on tape, and not a moment too soon, since the show was pulled from the Family Channel lineup in 1993. Needless to say, I came very close to missing out on seeing the show at all as the show hasn't been aired on television in the United States since that time. I was devastated when the series was taken off the air; the time that had passed since I had started watching the series was altogether too brief, but at least I did have my recorded tapes. To make up for not being able to see the New Zorro, I sought out all of the other versions of Zorro and compiled a complete library of tapes with all of the English-language versions of Zorro. For a few years, I collected memorabilia from Walt Disney’s Zorro and do still have most of those items, but by 1999, I decided to focus primarily on the New World Zorro, and I now only buy New World Zorro memorabilia. |
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It was during the summer of 2001 that I began to think of creating a web page. My motivation came from my desire to find more memorabilia from this series. Each new piece of memorabilia that I acquire helps me to relive the joy I had when watching the series for the first time. I thought that if I could put up a page with pictures of my memorabilia, it would help me when communicating with other collectors as I could indicate what I have and what I need. It was during July of 2001 that I created the site on Yahoo! Geocities and came up with a very small, basic page showing pictures of my memorabilia. I did not submit the site to any search engines as it really wasn’t good enough to show anyone. My knowledge of how to construct a web page was extremely limited at that time, and it was a tremendous effort to even get the pictures posted. |
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During December of 2001, I decided that I would like to create a site with more than just memorabilia: a site with comprehensive information covering all aspects of the series. I had a vision in my mind’s eye of what I wanted the site to be, but I wasn’t really sure where to start at first. The preexisting sites already seemed to have everything covered except for the memorabilia. I worked hard that month at learning more about HTML and set up the main page with pictures of the characters and a link to a second page with memorabilia. I also set up the episode list pages. Since everyone already had the episode lists on their sites, I knew I needed something to make mine different. I came up with the idea of having a picture from every episode included in my episode lists. I also used my brief summaries that I had written back in 1992 when I taped the series. At the end of December 2001, I submitted the site to a few search engines, and a few picked it up.In the one year from December 2001 to December 2002, I have come a long way with the site. During the first part of 2002, I made several additions to the site, and this is what the main page looked like at that time: http://newworldzorro.com/oldindex.html I made many improvements and additions to the site during the summer of 2002. During June, I found that having a free site didn’t give me enough bandwidth, so I upgraded the site to one of the premium Yahoo! Geocities services. Just about all I did in my spare time during July 2002 was work on the site. During July, I resubmitted the site to the search engines and noticed that the site's placement improved, and the hits went up dramatically on the site. Since July, the site has averaged 12 to 15 hits per day. With the additions to the site during December 2002, I can finally say that the site has now not only reached my initial vision from the end of 2001 but has actually exceeded that vision. I am not sure where it will end, but I still have lots of ideas, and I am dedicated to continuing the process of expanding and improving this site. At present, my goal is to make this site not only the most cosmetically appealing and entertaining site for this series on the internet but the ultimate source of information about this series. I think I have made a good start, wouldn’t you agree? |
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