"Get me rewrite." It's a phrase that strikes fear and loathing in the hearts of reporters and backers of the American constitution.

Now Disney joins the list. The studio went into red ink when its ambitious animation epic, Kingdom Of The Sun, was scrapped, then revised from the heap that was left.

In other words, Disney was whistling a different 'toon, altering the results from high-end to low-brow.

What they ended up with, The Emperor's New Groove, is a tale so outlandish that it makes Daffy Duck bits seem like a model for Groove's behaviour.

All of this is good, even great, in a ludicrously madcap way. The story is set in a mythical Inca-like mountain kingdom, barely etched and not-quite realized. So there's not much animated detail, but lots of yuks.

And there is music, too. Sting penned two nondescript ditties, likely uninspired, after he had to ditch the full and fancy numbers he had written for Kingdom Of The Sun.

Spoofing and goofing is not a Sting trademark. No Inca-Inca-do song from the former Police man. But his tune failure hardly seems to matter to the 'toon enjoyment.

The Mark Dindal-directed movie is single-minded in its pursuit of giggles. It's a fast-paced joke machine, thanks mostly to screenwriter David Reynolds, who previously added lots of funny stuff to hit animated features Tarzan, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2.

Groove also has lots of Stooge-like pratfalls, Road Runner-style sight gags, and even a few out-of-character cornball asides that would make Groucho Marx proud.

The laughs start when the young ruler (voiced by David Spade) downsizes his court by permanently laying off his wicked woman advisor (Eartha Kitt).

As payback, she concocts a poison to do him in, but instead of sending him to his maker he is made into a llama.

He/it soon learns the humour value of the buddy system when he/it hooks up with a kindly peasant (John Goodman) who rescues him from the clutches of the sinister sorceress, then heads to the safety of the peasant's humble village.

The ingrate emperor, of course, is a snide little twit, in sharp contrast to the oafish but lovable lug.

To say that Spade does the emperor comic justice is to remind you that he already does the arrogant nitwit twit on TV's Just Shoot Me. Also recall Spade's role in the cartoonish but live action Tommy Boy opposite the now dearly departed Chris Farley.

Goodman's version of a big-boned doofus peasant counts as a worthy straight man to Spade's yammering.

Good, too, is Patrick Warburton, who is the voice of the wicked advisor's dull-witted, cooking-obsessed henchman. Think of Warburton's Groove character as a dimmer version of his Puddy dude from TV's Seinfeld.

Even better? Think of The Emperor's New Groove as the silk purse.

(This film is rated F)

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