Disney's ultra-hip cartoon "The Emperor's New Groove" is clearly the product of a world-weary, post-Nickelodeon era. It's not enough anymore to make the kids laugh while slipping in some satire for the grown-ups; kids are so savvy nowadays, you have to give THEM something to bite on, too.

Set roughly in the age of the Incas, the film centers on Emperor Kuzco (David Spade), who in turn centers on himself. He's a brash young ruler with no concern except his own happiness. He's not cruel or despotic -- he just doesn't think about anyone else.

He gets mad at his adviser, an emaciated Cruella De Vil type named Yzma (Eartha Kitt), and fires her. For revenge, she plots to poison him with the help of her beefy, dim-witted assistant, Kronk (Patrick Warburton). Kronk screws it up, though, and instead of being killed, Kuzco is turned into a llama.

He accidentally winds up with a llama herder named Pacha (John Goodman), whose village Kuzco was planning to destroy to make room for his new swimming pool. Against what might have been his better judgment, Pacha agrees to help Kuzco make it back to the palace, even though Kuzco refuses to change his mind about the whole leveling-the-town thing.

And so we have a breezy little buddy picture in which the unlikely pair has to work as a team, and in which Kuzco has to learn to love someone other than himself.

Where many of Disney's other animated films of the last 15 years have generally had that "classic" feel about them, this one seems a bit more tossed-off, like it will be all but forgotten 10 years from now. Even movies that were more about humor than message -- "Aladdin" and "Hercules," for example -- still had an "I'm gonna make it someday" musical number and a soft heart. "The Emperor's New Groove" has neither. The message is no more or less deep than, say, "Beauty and the Beast's"; it's the manner in which it's presented that makes it different. Kuzco's personal journey seems like a necessary evil, something that's there because fables are supposed to have morals, and the movie keeps it at arm's length. Emotionally speaking, "Emperor" is a typical male: more interested in cracking jokes and being snide than in expressing its feelings.

With its lightning pace, 78-minute length and no sense of timelessness about it, it would be easy to dismiss the film as a thrown-together attempt to make a few dollars. I don't think that would be fair, though, as it is very well-animated, tightly plotted, well-acted and extremely funny. If it's a quickie, it's a pretty good one.

David Spade is, well, David Spade as Kuzco. If his smarmy, superior manner bothers you normally, don't expect it to be any different here. John Goodman is likable as always, but it's Patrick Warburton -- David Puddy on "Seinfeld" -- who makes the picture soar. His Kronk character is more than just a well-meaning moron. He's actually kind of smart, and good-natured enough in his subservience to Yzma that you root for him all the way. His delivery is reminiscent of the Marx Brothers or Bugs Bunny, loopy and energetic, even while maintaining his tough-sounding deadpan.

Will you be rewatching this again and again a decade from now? Unlikely. But will you laugh quite a bit now? Probably so.


THE DVD:

Here's what you need to know up front: This movie has already been released twice by Disney, as a single-disc and as a two-disc "special edition." Even the single-disc version had all the same components as this new one, except that this one has two additional deleted scenes in the bonus features. That's it. All the other bonus content is the same.

VIDEO: Anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), with vibrant, popping colors as befits the frothy, lighter-than-air story. There are optional English subtitles.

AUDIO: Three options: Dolby Digital 5.1 (in English or French), and DTS 5.1. All are fantastic and do the musical score a great service.

EXTRAS: There are three deleted scenes introduced by producer Randy Fullmer and director Mark Dindal. There's "Destruction of Pacha's Village," which was included on the two previous DVD releases and is more or less complete; "Pacha's Family," a lengthy sequence that didn't make it past the animatic phase; and the film's original ending, in which Kuzco builds a giant water-slide resort theme park. Sting told the filmmakers that such an act wouldn't be ecologically sound, so they changed it. Thank goodness for Sting! (Dear Sting: Shhhh.)

There are two music videos: "My Funny Friend and Me" by Sting (interspersed with clips of him talking about how he was asked to write songs for the movie -- but NOT about how most of those songs were subsequently scrapped), and Rascal Flatts teaching us to "Walk the Llama Llama." The kids will love it! Especially the easily amused ones.

"The Emperor's Got Game" is a trivia-based game for kids, narrated by Patrick Warburton as Kronk and someone they hired to impersonate Eartha Kitt as Yzma.

"Backstage Disney" is where the film's audio commentary is hidden. It features Fullmer, Dindal, art director Colin Stimpson, character designer Joseph C. Moshier, two animators and the "head of story." The commentary is breezy and interesting, covering most of the things you'd want to know about -- except for the fact that early on, the film was changed from a drama to a comedy and nearly all of Sting's songs were dumped. I'd like to know about all of that, but maybe it would have put a damper on the whole thing.

There are three behind-the-scenes mini-docs. "The Research Trip" sends the filmmakers to Machu Pichu and a llama farm for ideas. "Character Voices" shows us the actors recording the dialogue for the lead characters and commenting on the process. And the aptly titled "Creating Computer-Generated Images" shows how computer-generated images are created.

Do trailers even count as "extras"? Meh. Anyway, there are previews for several upcoming DVD and theatrical releases, including the direct-to-DVD feature "Kronk's New Groove," starring Kronk! Because it wouldn't be a Disney film if it didn't have a crappy DTV sequel.


THE BOTTOM LINE:

This is a funny movie, and a good one to add to your DVD library. But the ONLY reason you should buy this edition is if you don't already have one of the others. If "The Emperor's New Groove" already resides in your home, you don't need this one. It's pretty insulting that Disney would even try to sucker you into buying it.

(Note: Most of the "movie review" portion of this article comes from the review I wrote when the movie was released theatrically. I have re-watched the film in the course of reviewing the DVD, however.)