what’s fascinating abt THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE is very little of the comedy that’s native to it, script & design wise. Most of the comedy is actually derived from the stellar voice performances. They inflect & modulate their voices so expressively, even in mundane dialogue.

As compared to something like TOY STORY, where a lot of the jokes are built into the screenplay. Most of the gags in built into NEW GROOVE are visual gags (of which there aren’t a ton), not written/dialogue based jokes.

THE SWEATBOX, Trudie Styler and John-Paul Davidson's doc on the pained six year development process of THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE (notably between Sting, Roger Alers, and Mark Dindal), is on YouTube (watch it before it disappears!):

NEW GROOVE locates this curious relationship between pleasure and power in the context of imperialist power, that you could basically boil down a lot of imperialist action not on the power itself but the pleasure that exerting that power invites.