Ellen's Energy Adventure
EPCOT · Future World
Overview
Ellen's Energy Adventure was a nearly 45-minute theater-and-ride hybrid built around a comedic framing story: Ellen DeGeneres falls asleep and dreams she's losing on Jeopardy! to her old college roommate Judy Peterson (Jamie Lee Curtis) because she doesn't know enough about energy, prompting Bill Nye to guide her through a crash course. The show combined a large rotating theater, a moving ride-through segment past animatronic dinosaurs, and a big-screen film, all inside the massive Universe of Energy pavilion.
ParksLog verdict
Ellen's Energy Adventure is remembered with real affection despite — or maybe because of — how odd its premise was: a Jeopardy!-themed dream sequence about oil and coal, played mostly for laughs. It bridged Epcot's earnest 1980s educational era and its more entertainment-forward modern identity. Worth knowing if you're wondering why Guardians of the Galaxy sits in such an enormous, oddly-shaped building.
About this experience
A reimagined version of Universe of Energy starring Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye, combining humor and education about energy sources in a long-form ride experience.
Best for
- Guests who rode it and want to relive the memory
- Epcot park historians
- Fans of the pavilion's dinosaur diorama era
Tips
- The pavilion building itself still stands and now houses Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
Details
History
It opened in 1996 as a reimagining of the original Universe of Energy, replacing that show's more serious educational tone with celebrity-driven comedy. It closed in 2017 to make way for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, which opened in the same building in 2022 after a lengthy construction period.
Fun facts
- The ride's moving theater seated over 500 guests and could rotate and detach to travel through a prehistoric diorama
- Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye both appeared as themselves, an unusually direct celebrity tie-in for a Future World attraction
- The building's massive solar-panel roof, installed for the original Universe of Energy, remained a distinctive Future World landmark throughout this version's run