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Alas, flipping llama burgers and delivering pill bug pizzas doesn’t pay as much as one would think, so Kronk finds himself back under the influence of Yzma, his former boss who has (mostly) recovered from her feline transformation in the Emperor’s climax (we’ll just say that Yzma’s new look harkens back to the most famous role of Eartha Kitt, still as delicious as ever). Back to her old tricks, Yzma plots to swindle the empire’s old folk (led by the old man who “threw off Kuzco’s groove�? in the original, here named Rudy and once again voiced by the late great John Fiedler, in his final role) out of their retirement money with a phony “fountain of youth�? potion. The cash Kronk rakes in allows him to buy the house on a hill of his dreams, but at a price …

In the movie’s second episode (the plot is structured as a pair of flashbacks leading up to the dreaded visit of Kronk’s pop), Kronk finds his one true love in the gawky form of Miss Birdwell (voiced with a British clip, a la Jane Porter, by Tracey Ullman), who turns out to be his rival for the Junior Chipmunk championship. Their romance is put on the back burner while they selfishly compete - with their cherubic charges as pawns - until their passion is ignited by their mutual baking skills. It all comes to a boil during the final round, an elaborate cheerleading contest right out of Bring It On, that ends in disaster and broken hearts.

Meanwhile, back at the Mud Hut, the arrival of Kronk’s stern pappy Papi (John Mahoney) - he of the “flared nostrils of rejection�? - is imminent, and Kronk and friends scramble to create the illusion that he is married with children, leading to a wacky charade that finds most of the cast in drag or diapers. The whole tale is wrapped up nicely with a happy ending for “Kronkie-poo�? and his lady love and a reconciliation between estranged father and son, with the ever-resilient morale to be “true to yourself,�? as well as a message relevant to our own times:  that one can choose who their family is even if they are not related by blood or marriage. And who better to offer that timely message then that most metrosexual of cartoon characters, Kronk.

In addition to those already mentioned, other original cast members David Spade (Kuzco), John Goodman (Pacha) and Wendie Malick (ChiCha) return, along with fan favorites Bucky the squirrel and Kronk’s “shoulder angel�? and “shoulder devil�?. We are also introduced formally to Pacha and ChiCha’s youngest, baby Yupi, who joins siblings Chaca (newcomer Jessie Flower) and Tipo (once again voiced by Eli Russell Linnetz), who figure prominently in the story as members of Kronk’s scout troop.

Familiar gags from the original also resurface, most welcomely the crazily complex schemes visualized in two-tone silhouette, and we are treated to two new songs: “Be True To Your Groove�? is sung by Kronk’s own “theme song gal�?, while Yzma finally gets her own villain show-stopper with “Feel Like a Million�?. The stand-out musical number though is set to the disco classic “Let’s Groove Tonight�? by Earth, Wind and Fire and danced, with nods to Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction, by Kronk and Birdwell. Animated characters gettin’ down and boogying has become such a cliché of late (see Madagascar, Chicken Little and the trailer for the upcoming Happy Feet), that it is a tribute to the affection you feel for these characters that it actually works here.

And where else in animation can you get a cheeky homage to Evita, not to mention this year’s only funny Lion King gag? No doubt about it, this New Groove is a loonier toon then The Emperor’s, and proves that direct to video fare need not be half-hearted rehashes of the original stories.