Top Film for Each Year of My Life – 2000

The Emperor’s New Groove

“Break it down? Are ya kidding me? This is hand-carved mahogany.”

“What are the odds of that trap door leadin' me out here?”

The Emperor’s New Groove was released four and a half years after the last Disney animated feature I saw in theaters (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), so needless to say, I didn’t have much interest in Disney’s new feature. I ignored New Groove during its theatrical run and continued to ignore it upon its home video release. However, one fateful night changed everything.

My recollection of the night is as follows, though some people may be left out. For some reason, my buddy Aaron and I were invited over to our friend Betsy’s house. We never hung out there. To this day, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been over there and even that is too much. We (meaning Betsy and other friend, Christen) decided on watching a movie and since the night was about hanging out with friends, any movie would do, so the picked The Emperor’s New Groove. Well, I was blown away. It’s really like no other Disney animated feature before or since (at least 2D animation). All I could think about was what kind of drugs the writers must have been using when they wrote the script. This freak of an evening introduced me to what is now one of my top-5 all-time favorite movies. So thank you Christen and Betsy.
What surprised me the most was how clever and subversive and bizarre the humor was. Let’s be honest, the title of the movie sucks. I thought it was going to be a stupid kids movie based on that alone. Instead, I got a movie that features the line, “Come on, men! No one lives forever!” right before a bunch of animal guards leap to their deaths.

The voice cast is pretty phenomenal. Let’s face it, we know David Spade’s shtick and it gets tiresome, but it works perfectly for Emperor Kuzco. Then there’s John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, Spade’s Just Shoot Me co-star Wendy Malick, even John Fiedler (the voice of Piglet!). But the man who steals the movie is Patrick Warburton as the dimwitted Kronk. Everything he does in New Groove is quotable and classic, from his shoulder angel and devil, to his work as the diner cook, to the Junior Chipmunks, Kronk owns this movie.
New Groove was conceived as an epic called Kingdom of the Sun. Sting was going to write all the music a la Elton John and The Lion King. However, story issues pervaded and early test screenings were received poorly, so much of the original story was scrapped, including most of Sting’s work (two songs survived, one in the film and one in the end credits which is glaringly out of place compared with the rest of the movie). A documentary, The Sweatbox, was made about the struggle, but unfortunately Disney has no plans to release it.

Aside from the sense of humor, my favorite part of the film is the way it both pokes fun at and honors Disney’s past, and animation in general. I said earlier that New Groove is like no other Disney film, and that’s true. The style and pacing feel more like the Warner Brothers’ Looney Toons cartoons. And that’s a good thing.

I’ve never had any desire to see the sequel or the television spin-off because I don’t believe they could come close to the original and I don’t want to taint these characters. The Emperor’s New Groove is pure joy and I just ask that everyone watch it. Lots. You will be rewarded.