The Emperor's New Groove/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Revision as of 23:15, 22 July 2021 by Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (deleted misused trope, copyedit)


  • Anvilicious: Like most animated films today, the Power of Friendship is presented in full force. Unlike most animated films today, it manages to work in the movie's favor.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: Kuzco-as-a-llama telling himself-as-a-narrator to stuff the self pity, and gamely attempting to start a new life as an ordinary llama.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: The entire freaking movie is one for the Disney Animated Canon.
  • Fashion Victim Villain: Yzma, who has a mannequin-head for nightly "storing" of her enormous fake eyelashes.
  • Fountain of Memes: This film is one of the most quotable Disney films of all time, with Kronk, Kuzco and Yzma all having memorable lines.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Yzma asks Kronk "Why do we even have that lever?" Well, really, what happens when Kuzco and Pacha try to sneak into the lab? Maybe that's why!
    • Theoretically, yes. Except that Kuzco and Pacha just get right past the alligators with little problem, so there still seems to be little purpose to it.
    • So this happens:

Kuzco: Ok, why does she even have that lever?

  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Patrick Warburton apparently likes playing the bodyguard to a very skinny, inept mad scientist.
  • Memetic Mutation: "Kuzco is my favorite Disney Princess" on Tumblr.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Parodied when, at least according to Kronk's shoulder devil, Yzma crossed it when she admitted to never liking Kronk's spinach puffs.
  • Motive Decay: Extremely condensed and mocked in the "Escape from Yzma's lab" sequence where Kuzco tries on a large number of unlabeled potions in rapid succession, turning into stuff way unsuited for the escape. Eventually, he gets another llama potion, going back to the form he'd been in for most of the movie, and begins laughing happily like he'd just achieved his goal (turning back into a human). "Yay! I'm a llama again! ...wait."
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: Actually averted somewhat. The Playstation game was just as humorous and satirical as the movie is. Hanging lampshades on video game cliches long before The Simpsons Game did. The game does alter certain plot points from the movie though. An example is in the game Kuzco knows Yzma is trying to kill him right from the start, while in the movie he did not learn that until after the diner scene. Should also note that Yzma's crocodiles are, shall we say, more competent guards than they were in the movie.
    • There was a PC game as well. It was also a good game and funny, but rather Nintendo Hard.
  • Sequelitis: The direct-to-DVD Kronk's New Groove was pretty dire, save perhaps one or two individual moments. The follow-up TV series The Emperors New School regained some lost ground but had a tendency to take jokes from the original movie and re-re-re-use them until they lay in tatters.
  • Spiritual Successor: The Teacher's Pet movie, made by Disney a few years later, has a very similar sense of humor.
  • Vindicated by History: After the release of Shrek, many people looked back to this film for having a more natural sense of humor.