On this day, in 1996, Ellen DeGeneres began having an Energy Crisis in the Universe of Energy pavilion at Epcot.
You heard that right. When the revamped ride reopened that fall, Ellen's energy was in full crisis mode. It didn't last long. Almost immediately, she got her act together and
Ellen's Energy Crisis was renamed
Ellen's Energy Adventure. No explanation was ever given as to the nature of the crisis, we're just glad it got resolved.
The original
Universe of Energy was fairly serious and utilitarian. Educational films informed guests about different kinds of energy and a trip through prehistoric times let everyone know where fossil fuels came from. It even got not one but
two songs. Straightforward, not terribly exciting stuff. That all changed in version two, mostly due to a bad wig but I'm getting ahead of myself.
As attraction updates began to focus more on humor and celebrity faces, the Universe of Energy was ripe for an overhaul. And who better to use than folks with current hit projects.
Bill Nye, the Science Guy would lend credibility to the presentation and
Ellen would provide a perfect comic foil to all the sciency stuff. Add in Alex Trebek and Jamie Lee Curtis for a Jeopardy showdown like no other, and you get the adventure we'd been waiting for. Don't get me wrong, Ellen's Energy Adventure was still quite informative, as Future World pavilions should be.
The ride system itself didn't change from the original. Guests watched a short preshow in which Ellen dreams she's on Jeopardy losing against her old college nemesis and Albert Einstein. That led into a theater with four large ride vehicles. After getting seated, the vehicles rotated for another movie that showed Bill Nye offering to help Ellen learn a few things during the commercial break. The vehicles then moved through the area with dinosaur animatronics, again letting guests know where fossil fuels came from. The experience ended back in the theater it started in with Ellen using all her newfound knowledge to totally kill Final Jeopardy.
It was in the area with the dinosaurs that the real highlight of the attraction was found. No one knows for sure who dressed the Ellen animatronic figure, but it quickly passed into the hall of fame for unintentional guest favorites. Whether it was the absolutely terrible wig or the fact that Ellen was trying to fend off a dinosaur by poking a stick at it, a little part of all of us died when the figure stopped working and was removed from the ride in 2014. The adventure stopped altogether on August 13, 2017 as the Universe of Energy pavilion went dark in anticipation of version three featuring the
Guardians of the Galaxy. No word yet if the dinosaurs will still be a part of it, but we can always hope.
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