Yzma

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Yzma
First appearance The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
Created by Mark Dindal
Voiced by Eartha Kitt
Also known as Principal Amzy

Yzma (eez-mah), commonly misspelled Ezma, is the main villain in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove and its spin-off television series The Emperor's New School. In both roles Yzma is voiced by Eartha Kitt.

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[edit] Character

Yzma is a jealous, angry, bitter and impossibly ancient hag (at one point, Kuzco refers to her as "living proof the dinosaurs once roamed the earth") who works for Emperor Kuzco as his advisor. Her exact age is never revealed, but she has obviously been working for the royal family for countless centuries. These long, long years have not allowed her to age gracefully. Her skin is wrinkled tightly, her voice is shrill and ear-splitting, and she is totally bald, causing several characters to sum her up as being "scary beyond all reason." Despite her ghastly appearance, Yzma is convinced she is "beautiful" (in one episode it is revealed that she was indeed quite attractive as a teenager). She is also extremely fit and agile for a crone so old and quite strong despite her "stick figure". At the time of the first film, she has attempted to take over the kingdom several times behind Kuzco's back. When Kuzco catches her, he sacks her on the spot and she attempts to kill him in revenge. Sadly, her idiotic henchman, Kronk botches things and Kuzco is turned into a llama.

Yzma has a "secret lab" (which, in fact, is known about by many including Kuzco), and it can be reached by a roller coaster-like ride down through the palace. In one episode it was revealed that there are stairs leading down to the lab. In her lab she has created a variety of potions which turn whoever drinks them into the animal that Yzma has used extracts from in her magic. All her potions are a luminous pink colour, leading to many confusions. Kronk picked up the wrong potion thinking it to be deadly to the drinker, when really all it did would turn them into a llama. Yzma's mistakenly drinks a potion which turns her into a cat.

Eartha Kitt commented that she "adored" Yzma, because "she goes after what she wants". Indeed, Yzma is a ruthless and heartless villain, but is also an over-the-top, flamboyant diva. She has the cunning wit to conjur up evil schemes (though they generally have her doing rather meaningless things such as turning Kuzco into a bug then putting him in a box then putting that box in another box then mailing that box to herself and smashing it with a hammer), but is not so competent in carrying them out. Every few decades or so, she hires a right hand man, and her most recent one is Kronk. Yzma appears to have an affinity with the colour purple, as all her clothing, her equipment and even her skin and eyes are purple. She also decorates the palace in purple after believing Kuzco to be dead and she attempts to take over the empire.

[edit] Role in the Story

Originally serving as the Emperor Kuzco's advisor, she is later fired after meddling in his affairs and attempting to act as Empress in his absence. Enraged at her banishment, Yzma conspires with her dim-witted assistant Kronk to dispose of Kuzco. The two head to the "secret lab" -- which apparently everybody already knows about -- to concoct a plan to kill Kuzco. Her original idea was to transform Kuzco into "A flea, a harmless little flea. And then, I'll put that flea in a box, then put that box into a bigger box, and then I'll mail that box to myself. And when it arrives, I'll smash it with a hammer!" But after thinking it over, she decides to save on postage and simply poison him. The concept of her formulating a nonsensical plan before settling on an easier-to-pull-off idea would later be used as a running gag on the series.

Like most Disney supervillains (i.e. Jafar, Scar, Judge Claude Frollo), she comes up with grandiose plans and schemes with a set objective in mind but fails to pay attention to the minor details of it. More often than not it causes the scheme to backfire on her. For example in the episode Officer Kronk, she, as Principal Amzy, makes Kronk the campus police chief in order to trap Kuzco into indiscretions that would get him expelled. She fails to take into account Kuzco's deviousness and Kronk's dimwittedness. As a result she ends up in the school jail with everyone else.

In The Emperor's New School episode, Monster Masquerade, Yzma takes a cobra form similar to Jafar's from the Classic Disney film Aladdin. Yzma possesses many of Kuzco's more negative traits including impatience, selfishness and vanity.

Another major running gag in the movie and series is the lever to the lab, which she more often than not triggers with her catch phrase "To the secret lab!" What follows is her commanding Kronk to pull the lever, which usually results in him pulling the wrong lever, causing something to happen for comedic effect. For example, in the movie, when this happens, Yzma falls through a trap door and into a moat below, while screaming "Wrong lever!". She returns, detaching a crocodile from her dress, and mutters, "Why do we even have that lever?!" (the same thing happens to Kuzco as a llama) Afterwards, Yzma and Kronk (or whoever's pulling off the routine) go through a roller coaster, which in The Emperor's New School also have running gags such as you need a ticket, that deposits them in the secret lab, wearing lab coats. This gag now comes back to the TV series.

Yzma also appears in the direct-to-DVD sequel Kronk's New Groove. She is also a regular on the spin-off Disney Channel TV series The Emperor's New School, where she tries to make Kuzco fail his classes. In the series, she is undercover as Principal Amzy. As a running gag, Kronk can never seem to remember that she and Principal Amzy are one and the same, in spite of how obvious it is ("Amzy" is Yzma's name spelled backwards). Yzma also has the unique ability to change into any thing she desire by pulling her oufit as demonstrated in the ENS episode Kuzclone where she turns into things like a clown and a sea monster wearing a top hat playing a tuba.

In the Emperor's New Groove soundtrack, Yzma has a song called Snuff Out The Light, which was cut out from the movie when the plot of her trying to block out the sun was removed from the story.

In The Emperor's New School, some of Yzma's known relatives appear at times. They (so far) include her twin nephews, Zim and Zam, (voiced by Dylan and Cole Sprouse) who appear in Chipmunky Business, and her mother Azma, (voiced by Ellen Albertini Dow) who appears in The Bride of Kuzco and looks just as ancient looking as Yzma (possibly even more so) and converses by sighs and chuckles.

In one scene in the movie, where Yzma and Kronk are trapped inside a closet, one can see that Yzma's eyes, after she loses her patience, have a spiraling effect. This is perhaps an allusion to Jafar, whose eyes have the same effect when he is triumphant (notably directly following his reprise of Prince Ali).

[edit] Potions Yzma has been affected by throughout her life

  • Kitten (The Emperor's New Groove, retained the tail in Kronk's New Groove, Mudka's Secret Recipe)
  • Rabbit (Kronk's New Groove)
  • Llama (Kuzclone, only mentioned)
  • Scary beyond all reason (The Mystery of Pichu Macchu, never worked because she was already)
  • Kuzcogartener named DaMazy (Kuzcogarten)
  • Giant cobra (Monster Masquerade)
  • Skunk (Ramon's a Crowd, only mentioned)
  • Buzzard (Mudka's Secret Recipe)
  • Spider (Mudka's Secret Recipe)
  • Kangaroo (Mudka's Secret Recipe)
  • Flying Squirrel (Mudka's Secret Recipe)
  • Crab (Mudka's Secret Recipe)
  • Gorilla (Mudka's Secret Recipe)
  • Voice changing spray (sounds like an actor and then Kronk, Emperor's New School Musical)

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • In the movie it is revealed that Yzma is bald and has no eyelashes. (This can clearly be seen when Kronk barges into her tent, as her hair and eyelashes are hanging on a coatrack and are also absent from her face.) This was also seen in the episode Kronk Moves In and the season finale, Yzmopolis.
  • In the movie's end, Yzma is turned into a cat. In Kronk's New Groove, she is human again, but still has a fluffy gray cat tail. However, the tail is not shown in the series.
  • She also has false teeth shown in the pilot episode when they fall out of her mouth.
  • Yzma has many similarities to the evil, ancient hag Gagool in King Solomon's Mines. Both are ancient beyond belief, and both work as advisors to their countries kings, though they are really conspiring against them.

[edit] References

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