The Emperor’s New Groove opened on this day 25 years ago. The film’s production history was so complex they could make a documentary about it (oh wait, they already have). By now it’s sort of common knowledge that it began life as Kingdom of the Sun, a more traditional Disney musical for which Sting wrote several songs. But for a number of reasons, it fell apart.

Among other things, the story became overly complicated (it was a loose adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper which was also about a man turning into a llama which was also an epic romance which was also about an evil plot to blot out the sun), so when Disney decided to start over from scratch and make it a Looney Tunes-style comedy, they only had 18 months to put it all together. Delaying the release date wouldn’t be an option. And the reason for that is something near and dear to my heart: Happy Meal toys.

No, I’m not kidding. Because Disney had already arranged for a McDonald’s promotion to coincide with the film’s December 2000 opening, they were stuck with it, as back then the restaurant chain had a hefty fine if marketing campaigns were cancelled (mind you, if that happens today, they just do the promotion anyway even if the movie is currently going through 10,000 reshoots). This meant that The Emperor’s New Groove became a marathon to complete—it never even had an official script written—with the team making everything up as they went along.

And the amazing thing is…it worked. Although it’s often cited as a box office disappointment, that’s really an unfair assessment. Premiering to just $9 million, it did look bad initially. However word-of-mouth helped propel it to a final domestic total of nearly $90 million, which was more than nine times its opening weekend! It then went on to become one Disney’s best-selling home video releases ever, and when it eventually aired on Disney Channel, it brought in consistently strong ratings. It was like a cult classic which also achieved mainstream popularity. Everyone was happy, except for maybe Sting, but hey, he still got an Oscar nomination, and some of those deleted songs were included on the soundtrack album (which probably confused many kids who bought it).

So…how about those Happy Meal toys? Well, they were pretty nifty, but I sadly only ever got one of them (Pacha). They were all launchers, and very well-made, although they did spoil that Yzma turned into a kitten at the end of movie (luckily I saw the film before they started the promotion).

Have a llama-llama night, y’all!