The Emperor's New School



"K, U, Z, C, O! Kuzco, Kuzco! GO-GO!"

The Emperor's New School (2006-2008) is a Disney Channel show based on the Disney Film The Emperor's New Groove.

Kuzco, the main character, is still an obnoxious self-centered emperor (in spite of how The Movie ended) who has been temporarily dethroned and must attend The Kuzco Academy and pass all his classes to become Emperor, as you can't become one without finishing all schools. The Kuzco Academy is run by Principal Amzy, a Paper-Thin Disguise for Yzma, the series villain, which fools no-one except her handsome but dim lackey Kronk.

Yzma wants to usurp Kuzco's throne which, given her controlling personality, wouldn't be good and thus schemes to prevent Kuzco passing his classes -- at first by transforming him into all sorts of different animals. In Season II she finds an evil hall of evil machinery. Luckily for Kuzco he has Malina, straight-A student, cheerleader, and "Hottie-Hot-Hottie" as well as his foster family of Pacha, Chicha, and the kids to help him out. Occasionally Kronk too.

Usually the episodes center around teaching Kuzco some sort of Aesop, though it started to get away from that later in the run.

"Kuzco: Hey Pacha, can you believe I lived here all this time, and I still don't know your last name. Pacha: "I'd be more surprised if you did.""
 * The Ace: Ramon.
 * An Aesop
 * Aesop Amnesia: Kuzco just wouldn't be Kuzco without his personality. He's still a jerk who thinks of himself first, others second.
 * Better than his movie personality of himself first, others never.
 * Alternate Continuity: The series seems to ignore a high majority of things about the first film while also containing elements that hint the series occurs after the movie. Kuzco still retains his original personality before realizing the world doesn't revolve around him yet he is familiar with Pacha and his family, Yzma appears to be back to full human form despite the second movie indicating she was still in the midst of recovering from it which could be argued happened before the series but is immediately shunned by the fact Kronk's still Yzma's lackey.
 * Ambiguously Jewish: Kronk. Remember what series you're trying to make sense of before you attempt to make sense of it.
 * Anachronism Stew: Even more so than the movie, and that's saying something!
 * Arbitrary Skepticism: The Moon Beast episode. There are magic potions that can change people, there are gods that grant wishes, but there are no man-eating monsters.
 * Arranged Marriage:, right after Kuzco and Malina planned for a date.
 * Art Shift: Kuzco's doodles. Occasionally other characters join in.
 * Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: "Don't worry sir. I won't rest until I-- HEY! There's that monkey with the funny hat! Here, monkey-onkey-onkey!"
 * Averted Trope: One episode has the Running Gag of Izma telling Kronk to "pull the lever". Usually the lever is pulled and something comical regarding Izma happens. In one episode nothing happens.
 * The "B" Grade: "Girls Behaving Oddly"
 * Bad Future: In the season 1 finale, Kuzco wishes that he'd never been Emperor, causing one of these where Yzma was always Empress.
 * Baleful Polymorph: It is (initially) Yzma's intention to use this trope to turn Kuzco into something useless in order to get him to fail school (and thus, lose the kingdom). It never works out, no matter how often she tries.
 * Big No: Kronk when he fears that he'll never receive his Patch Patch.
 * Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Princess Lalala.
 * Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Painfully and sometimes Anvilicious.
 * Couch Gag
 * Cowardly Sidekick: Guaca.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Kuzco usually, and Malina when it comes to Kuzco.
 * Also, surprisingly, Kronk all the time when he and Yzma are scheming together.
 * Death Glare: The "Malina Stare".
 * Depending on the Writer: Again, Malina can sometimes be a reasonable or even flawed character in episodes, while in others she's near perfect.
 * Dumbass Has a Point: Whenever Kronk points out a very obvious flaw in the first Zany Scheme Yzma comes up with.
 * Early-Bird Cameo: Kuzco and all the other characters from this show previously appeared in House of Mouse (due to The Emperors New Groove being released before it) before making their official televised debuts here.
 * Egopolis: Everything is named after Kuzco.
 * There was also an episode where everything was named after Yzma, and another where everything was named after Guaca.
 * Every Year They Fizzle Out: Inverted. The team is really good... until Kuzco joins in.
 * Expository Theme Tune
 * F Minus Minus: In "Kuzclone", Kuzco's clone does so poorly that he gets a G-.
 * First Kiss:
 * Fountain of Youth
 * Freudian Trio: Kuzco (Id), Kronk (Ego), Malina (Superego).
 * Gender Bender: Kuzco and Kronk turned into girls at "Girl Behaving Oddly".
 * Giftmas Episode
 * You Mean "Xmas"
 * Good Angel, Bad Angel: Parodied lots of times. In first season ALL CHARACTERS had small Kronks on their shoulders.
 * Grand Finale: "Graduation Groove"
 * High School
 * I See London: Kuzco in "The Emperor's New School Spirit", when he gets thrown into a wastebasket head first and his skirt flips up, revealing light blue under-shorts with rainbow-colored hearts that Guaka got for him as a birthday present.
 * I Was Quite a Looker:
 * Likely a reference to Kingdom Of The Sun where
 * Idiot Hero / Book Dumb: Kuzco, intermittently. It comes and goes, depending on the episode.
 * Informed Attractiveness: Malina. Sure, some might consider her pretty attractive as far as physical appearance goes (as well as the art style), but that still doesn't change the fact that they feel the need to mention she's a "hottie" in the show's theme song. As well as most episodes.
 * Inventional Wisdom: Carries Over from the Movie
 * It's All About Me: Kuzco, of course. As noted above, the show really tries to have it both ways.
 * Heck, it's in the theme song. Verbatim. Delivered by Kuzco.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kuzco
 * Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Depending on the episode, Kuzco might or might not learn his life lesson.
 * Karma Houdini: In "The Emperor's New Tuber" Malina cheats to win a largest potato contest and gets away with it because the foot of Yzma's giant stone robot crushed it into mashed potato and she instead gets 1st place for the best tasting category and doesn't confess to cheating.
 * Kids Are Cruel: Nicely toyed with. Kuzco was a nasty kid, but the other kids are just defending themselves.
 * Limited Wardrobe: Changed in season 2, in which Kuzco had three or four sets of clothes. In series 1, all he wore was the school uniform.
 * Season 1 would also fit in the School Uniforms Are the New Black trope.
 * Line-of-Sight Name: Brad Bowllama
 * Brad Bananastaircasehat
 * Merit Badges for Everything: the Junior Chipmunks.
 * Missing Episode: For no apparent reason, episodes 43 ("Father O'Mine" and "Everybody Loves Kuzco") and 49 ("Faking the Grade" and "Eco Kuzco") are never shown in the Disney Channel's rerun rotation. The Kuzcoween, Cornivale, and Giftmas episodes also fall under this, but it's because they're holiday episodes.
 * Mood Dissonance: The "Kuzco Mambo", a cheery sing-a-long with flashy colors and praise about how awesome Kuzco is. Right after Kuzco was bemoaning how few friends he had and got captured by Yzma.
 * No Fourth Wall: Quite well done.
 * Not a Date: This was a running gag. Whenever Kuzco and Malina would end up doing something together, Kuzco would call it a date, and Malina would tell him "it's not a date". In the series finale they went on a date.
 * Once an Episode: "Pull the lever, Kronk!" "Wrong lever!"
 * Also Kronk forgetting Amzy and Yzma are the same person. The concept is, of course, lampshaded in "Yzma Be Gone."
 * Only One Name: Everybody.

"Malina: Look, when I ran the Scroll, I had a motto: "News that's real, is our ideal." Kuzco: Yeah, yeah, mine is "Mottos that rhyme should be a crime.""
 * Open Secret: Everyone knows Principal Amzy is actually Yzma despite her really bad attempts at hiding it. Likewise, everyone knows Kronk works for her, but he's such a nice guy everyone is friends with him anyway.
 * The Other Darrin: Fred Tatasciore replaces John Goodman as Pacha for the first season.
 * Parental Abandonment: Kuzco, just like in the movie. One episode even deals with a sort of "family Olympics," and he immediately goes to join Pacha's family. He himself claims he was "birthed from a glorious union between the Moon and the Stars." It's even painted Renaissance-style on the school's ceiling. It's implied in another episode that Yzma is behind the disappearance of Kuzco's Dad.
 * Playing Sick
 * Poor Man's Substitute: It's pretty obvious that J. P. Manoux sounds like David Spade doing a very bad impersonation of David Spade doing a...you get the idea
 * Popular Is Dumb: Averted. Apparently at Kuzco Academy cheerleaders are required to have perfect grades.
 * Purely Aesthetic Era
 * Put Me in Coach: even when Kuzco learns how to play the game... he never actually scores.
 * Rage Against the Author: Rage Against The Animators, really. As per the absence of the fourth wall in this series, when Kuzco becomes The Caligula and starts abusing his power in one episode, he fires the colourists (leaving the show penciled in black and white until he rehires them).
 * Rashomon Style: "Oops All Doodles"
 * Recycled: the Series
 * Rhymes on a Dime: "Unfit to Print"

"Kuzco: To the not-so-secret lab!" (effortlessly sneaks in) "They really need to put a lock on this place.""
 * The Rival: Ramon.
 * Running Gags: Most of them are jokes recycled from the movie.
 * Sdrawkcab Name: Yzma/Amzy, and Kronk/Knork.
 * Small Reference Pools: Averted. There was a DEVO joke. In a DISNEY CARTOON. If only because of this, you can't hate the series.
 * The "Kuzco Dance" segment of the Musical Episode also includes a Shout-Out to the The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
 * Spelling Song
 * Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: Kronk
 * Swiss Cheese Security: Yzma's lab.


 * Tsundere: Malina. Especially Towards Kuzco
 * Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Kuzco
 * Villain Song: Yzma gets Yzmopolis in the Bad Future episode, explaining what she's done with the kingdom...rename literally everything after herself.
 * Where Are They Now? Epilogue: The last episode has Kuzco providing this over the end credits.
 * Wild Teen Party: Kuzco tries to persuade Malina to throw one while her parents are out of town. She refuses. In the end, he ends up throwing one. At her house. For a bunch of manatees. (It Makes Sense in Context.)
 * Wonderful Life: "Yzmopolis"
 * Xtreme Kool Letterz: Averted. The show's title was originally going to be spelled The Emperor's New Skool; perhaps Jhonen Vasquez threatened to sue.
 * You Mean "Xmas": Kuzmas (and Kuzcoween and whatever other holiday they feel like parodying). The most painful is that in the Christmas episode a kid's wish is to see snow... And Kuzco freezes to near-death in the same episode.
 * Zany Scheme: Just about any plot Yzma comes up with to get rid of Kuzco.