Ellen's Energy Adventure
| Ellen's Energy Adventure | |
|---|---|
| Park | EPCOT |
| Land / area | Future World |
| Type | Travelling theatre dark ride |
| Opened | September 15, 1996 |
| Closed | August 13, 2017 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Closed |
Ellen's Energy Adventure was an attraction in the Universe of Energy pavilion in Future World at EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Florida. Starring Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye, it used a combination of filmed comedy, a travelling theatre and a ride through a primeval diorama of dinosaurs to explain where energy comes from and how it is used. At around 45 minutes, it was one of the longest attractions ever operated in the park.
History
The Universe of Energy pavilion opened with EPCOT on October 1, 1982, sponsored by Exxon. Its original presentation was a serious, large-screen survey of energy sources, famous for its roof of solar panels and for theatre cars that left the theatre, travelled through a dinosaur diorama, and returned for a concluding film. By the mid-1990s the show was thought to need a lighter tone and better-known presenters.
The original version closed in early 1996, and the pavilion reopened, after a period of work during which it operated briefly again in the busy summer season, on September 15, 1996. The new show was briefly introduced under the name Ellen's Energy Crisis before taking its lasting title, Ellen's Energy Adventure. Exxon, later ExxonMobil, continued as sponsor until 2004, after which the pavilion operated without one.
The show then ran, with only routine maintenance closures, for more than two decades. It became known as a long, air-conditioned break in the middle of an EPCOT day as much as for its subject, and its large theatre cars meant that even on busy days the wait was usually short.
Experience
The story was framed as a dream. In a filmed pre-show, Ellen DeGeneres, playing a version of herself, fell asleep while watching the game show Jeopardy! and dreamed that she was a contestant, competing against a former school rival, Judy, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, with all the questions about energy — a subject she did not know. Bill Nye appeared in the dream as her neighbour and guide.
Guests then boarded the travelling theatre: large, wire-guided vehicles, each seating many dozens of guests, which formed a theatre for film sequences before moving as a group into the primeval diorama. There, among volcanic landscapes, steam and Audio-Animatronic dinosaurs — including a dramatic encounter beside the vehicles — the formation of fossil fuels was acted out in scenery rather than explained in diagrams. The vehicles returned to the theatre for the final rounds of the dream quiz, in which Ellen, now understanding renewable as well as fossil sources, competed far more successfully.
The films mixed comedy with straightforward exposition about solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal and fossil energy, and the pavilion's solar roof, which helped power the ride vehicles, was itself part of the story the building told.
Closure and legacy
On July 15, 2017, Disney announced that the Universe of Energy would close. Ellen's Energy Adventure gave its final performances on August 13, 2017; the last ride was interrupted by a breakdown in the diorama, and its guests completed the experience on foot. The pavilion building was retained and reused, with a large new show building added behind it, for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, an indoor roller coaster that opened in 2022 as the successor on the Energy site.
The attraction is remembered for bringing named television presenters and a sitcom structure into an educational EPCOT pavilion, a notable shift from the park's original, presenter-free style. Its dinosaur diorama, inherited from 1982, survived both versions of the show and remains the element most often recalled by guests of either era.