A guy from Kuzco's past comes to get revenge on Kuzco for falsely imprisoning him for breaking Kuzco's statue seven years ago.

Yzma hires a new foreign exchange student to replace Kronk in her efforts to get rid of Kuzco. Then, he begins to steal of all Kuzco's "popularity". Kuzco and Kronk decide to get rid of Ramon by throwing him into a pit with a wild animal.

It is school picture day and Malina is making a big fuss about how her school picture must be perfect. When her picture ends up being bad, she rounds up all the yearbooks and destroys them. However, she forgets that a yearbook is locked in a Time Capsule in the temple. Now, her, Kuzco, and Kronk must get the yearbook before the temple is locked for 1,000 years.

Yzma is to be interviewed by Empress Magazine, and will also give a tour of the palace. However, she must somehow distract everyone. She \"invents\" the TV and has Kronk become a TV Superstar to have people become couch potatoes while she does the interview. Meanwhile, Kuzco gets jealous of Kronk getting all the attention.

Malina signs up for the "Save A Manatee Program" and is forced to take care of a manatee at her house. When the manatee, named Doyle, expects her to do all the work and messes up her room along with Kuzco, Malina tries to get rid of Doyle.

It is prank day at the school, and Kronk is trying to avoid Kuzco so that he doesn't fall into another one of his pranks. However Kuzco comes to school acting extremely scared of a "Moon Beast" that he saw the previous night.

It is time for the annual Nut Festival and Kuzco wants no part of it, so he heads to the river. When Bucky bothers him, he throws a nut which ends up breaking a dam and washing away the festival. He blames it on the squirrels, so the villagers decide to gather up all the squirrels and ship them out of town. Yzma takes advantage of this and uses a pie to turn Kuzco (and accidentally Kronk) into a squirrel.

When a new card game becomes the latest craze, Kuzco rushes to get his own set of cards. He then tries to rip off Kronk to get a powerful card, but it turns out that it was he who was ripped off. Now Kuzco will do anything to get the card back. Yzma decides to try and use the card to trade the rights to the throne. Meanwhile, Malina and Yata, who believe they are being mature by not being caught up in the latest fads, start buying all the coolest accessories.

Giftmas is just around the corner and everyone is getting ready for the holiday. Malina and Yata go shopping to find Kuzco some kind of gift he might actually like, while Pacha tells Chaca and Tipo a bedtime story about Papa Santos. However, Kuzco tells them that he does not exist, which fuels Tipo to find proof that he does. Meanwhile, Yzma’s fruitcake plan fails and she comes up with another way to get rid of Kuzco. She makes a game show about him (which he ironically comes in second place) in order for him to win a trip to a ski resort on Mount Reeve. However, the mountain does not have a resort and Kuzco and Kronk end up frozen. Then some gnomes show up and take the two of them to Papa Santos’ ice palace. Kuzco finally believes in him and finds out that he is on the naughty list, which is why his wishes never come true. He then sets out to correct all the wrong things he has done in order to get his wish to be Emperor. Meanwhile, Malina still struggles on what to get Kuzco.

Kuzco is sick of Kronk getting all the attention, so he decides to join the Inca Ball team. However, his personality clashes with his teammates as Kuzco thinks he can win the game all by himself. This causes him to become a ball hog, so the Kuzco Academy team begins to lose every game. When the final, most important game of the season comes around, the entire team quits, and leaves Kuzco to play by himself.

Kuzco's class is assigned to research their family tree. When Kronk asks his father, he discovers that he is actually from Kronkenitza, which causes Kuzco and some other kids at school to make fun of him for being different. Even Yzma wants in on the fun, so Kronk decides to leave and go to Kronkenitza. However, his leaving may not be a good idea, as soon his friends begin to miss him when some terrible things begin to happen. Meanwhile, Yzma's latest destroy Kuzco scheme involves cloning herself to win a contest.