Just a quickly made (but long) video about the Universe of Energy
Hello hello,
UPDATE: The YouTube version just got replaced. In addition to finishing up the captions, I included a lot of old B-roll I had gathered from before the recent EPCOT changes.
I haven't talked at all about my history with the Disney parks in a long time (for those that don't know I was a college program cast member in 2014) and since I just made the video on renewable energy, I wanted to talk about the wild experience which was Ellen's Energy Adventure.
I'll post this to Connextras publicly, probably after the livestream tomorrow. I want to make proper captions for it. It's uploading to here, too, but I forgot to lower the bitrate so it's going to take a long time to process.
OK, well I'll see ya tomorrow!
Comments (30)
I would LOVE to see you put some polish on this and release a sequel video essay. You're clearly very passionate about it.
Ah, the memories. As a theme park fan from Switzerland, I've been there not once, not twice, but three times. First visit was with my sister in 1992, shortly after Hurricane Andrew deroofed half of Florida. Second visit was in 1994 and third and final time was in 2002. While I can't remember any specific details of the ride, I'm absolutely sure that I rode it at least once every time I was there. Bummer the park no longer is what it used to be, but then neither is your whole country, unfortunately (and therefore we no longer intend to visit). Anyway... thank you for this video, it brought back some wonderful memories!
This was really inspiring. Thanks for the video!
This was really great, thanks for making it! That was such a great ride, I never saw the original either. We still say "Stupid Judy!" around here.
Ive never been to a theme park so this is all very impressive. If i had a time machine id love to see the bts in bright lights
I was a Disney college program cast member in 2014 also!
That was fun. I went to Epcot on a junior high field trip in 85 or 86 and I remember the original ride, vaguely. I know most of it didn't impress me and my 15 year old friends, but it was a nice respite from the heat. We really enjoyed the 96 update though, and rode that one many times. One thing about the 2000's though, as a Florida resident, 9/11 plus the very active hurricane years through that decade made staying on site super cheap. Coupled with the FL resident annual pass, it was actually pretty affordable. We've wanted to go back, but after COVID, it's just insanely expensive.
There’s a problem with technology marvel fairs like Epcot: It becomes outdated way too quickly. I went to Epcot with my family. I don’t remember the pavilion, but they had dozens, maybe hundreds of Sega Dreamcasts on display showing how wonderful video games can be. It was 2002 and the Dreamcast had just been discontinued. They also had a GM EV-1 showing us the future of electric cars. I was surprised because the EV-1 was not only discontinued, but GM had actively sought them out to destroy. And I was allowed to drive it! They picked me from the audience. The car was on a fixed platform that allowed front wheels to spin. I was allowed step on the accelerator pedal and hear what an electric car sounded like when you drive it. It’s not just Epcot. Sony had an exhibit in the top floor of Sony Plaza. (550 Madison Ave) about the wonderful technical future. It was take your kids to work day, and I took my 13 year old son. The exhibits included how your computer could connect to other computers by modem! (The ones that sound like a dying duck and could run as fast as 56k). We had cable Internet to our house and my son used it. We weren’t too impressed. Then there were exhibits where computers could guess your number, draw pictures, and make name badges. Being a tech worker and my son familiar with my work, we weren’t too impressed. My son did find something he liked. You could make a name badge. My son quickly realized you couldn’t make name badges with bad words. However, he came up to me about ten minutes later and told me you could put a space before and after the expletive and the machine would print a badge with that word. I turned around and saw about a dozen kids around the printer using my son’s technique and realized maybe it was time for us to bid a hasty ado.
Interesting. I always attempted to board the last car so that I could watch the procession of all the other cars slowly pull out and leave.
I just watched the Martin Smith video on this “ride” and wonder how many little kids were terrified the entire time (like half and hour) during the darkness, thunder storms, dinosaurs growling, floods, volcanos, and earthquakes. I can imagine a 5 year old me crying the whole time, screaming “I want to get off!!!” I’d do that on scary rides, but they only lasted a few minutes. I feel sorry for the parents who had to feel guilty for putting their children through it.
And today I found out yet another person I support on Patreon is part of the former Disney employee multiverse. Not a bad thing!
Some of my earliest career positions was as a contracts manager for engineering companies that support PetroChem. We got our money based upon what they wanted to spend on - and this was the 1980-2000 years before everything became focused on shareholder stock price - you know.... when we made decisions based upon ROI, ROE, NPV, IRR, et.al. My visit to Epcot in 2004 was through this unique lens. You've seen the "propaganda" PR videos for Chevron (particularly), Exxon/Mobil, BP) talking about environment. Yes, those are because there's a budget for ecological impact and sustainability, because of that requirement that every project has EPA approval for EIS. (pardon all the acronyms). But what I did see, and understand why it happens, is for every new oil rig or distillation facility that got built, it was a trade-off for an equivalent investment in something alternative (solar, wind, water (incl. hydroelectric), nuclear, R&D experimental.) When Carter came in, there was a 7 year shift towards alternative energies (and note a lot of China's engineers studied that in the late 80's as a result, which later made them leap ahead in solar panel mfg.) Then Reagan came in, and energy co's had to address that administration's war-focused trajectory (which included huge programs like SPRO - the strategic petroleum stored in billions of barrels all over the place) This subject could keep going into a full hour episode on just these 2 decades that put us where the US is today (vs. other countries). But hopefully you see where a massive economy like the US gets driven by whatever that next government points its money towards, and we see the results about 7-10 years later. The sponsorship of projects like the EPCOT attractions, various zoo expansions, and even national park areas is from that Eco budget, which is almost a 100% op expense to the company, and like labor, when cut-back has an instant effect on the cash flow financials (thus triggering stock price rise). When PetroChem was more of a blue-chip, like IBM and AT&T for years before deregulation, these spends stayed in-place from year to year. But a 20,000+ point DOW shifted all the priorities to the other side of the ledger. It's just a big version of "Do I spend my $1 on a new neato EV I can drive today, or on a rainwater recovery system, which ethically is probably better, but who knows if you'll ever see any direct return for it compared with the headaches of maintaining it?" $0.02
Funny thing about concentrated solar - PV got so cheap, so fast, that the operator of Ivanpah wants to close it! Progress!
The original version of the attraction was more pro-oil if my vague recollections from the 1980's are correct. The final film had a section where they talked about how great oil shale and tar sands were and how they were going to extend our ability to use oil for some large numbers of decades.
Oh my gosh, I remember this ride so very very much!
I've loved the little hints that you're an EPCOT Center kid from way back. Absolutely delightful memories from my own childhood.
Cynically I imagine the people saying "hey remember when they made oil propaganda" are only able of perceiving things in a more modern context, as the desperation of big oil companies to push back against the economic threat of solar/wind that they refused to capitalize on themselves when they had the chance has led them to ... well I'll put it bluntly: if you pitched this exact same script no changes to them *now*, they'd hard reject it. Or at least, that's what it seems like they would, given the accelerating pace of misinformation/disinformation as a tactic. Back in 2024 I heard someone complain that the television series CSI was a specifically-targeted-at-ultraconservative show in the same vein as a Daily Wire special *at the time it first aired* and I had to be like "no, that show was made for a mainstream audience, which at the time did lean a bit further to the right on average than in our more polarized present, and things like The Daily Wire didn't exist back then" and I guess the lesson is some people can't break out of the modern cultural context bubble. I guess that's what's going on here too. Mac protip: Command+` (backtick/tilde) will switch between windows of the currently open app
Well I think it's some of that and also just... not really understanding how much or how little creative control the sponsors have towards the attractions at Disney parks. Something you'll learn from Defunctland's video is that Disney had a whole concept for the park in place before they were looking for sponsors, and they knew what they wanted a lot of the pavilions to be. I don't know specifically if an energy pavilion had been settled on before sponsors were approached but many of the pavilions that exist definitely were. In the case of Ellen's Energy Adventure, the entire extent of the sponsorship as visible to guests was a sign which said "sponsored by Exxon" and at the very very end the Exxon logo appeared on screen as a dinosaur roared. There were also a few signs as you exited, I think. But that's literally all of it! Once the Exxon sponsorship was over, they removed those signs, cut the logo from the end, and kept the ride running. It's helpful, I think, to remember that both Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye were talent Disney already had in their back pocket, so it really was a Disney production with an oil company's name on it. I don't see it as much deeper than that.
So it sounds like the takeaway is that the GOP's right-wing reactionaries and culture warriors were even more true believers than the oil marketers.... Or at least, the marketing we know about. But I think there's a valid argument that the renewable-friendly public face was essentially greenwashing the businesses themselves, while in the meantime, petroleum lobbyists were privately having a field day pushing the other way in Washington D.C. So I think the accusation about it being propaganda is less about what it teaches about renewables vs fossil fuels factually, and more about brand image per se, to influence policy similar in vein to what they did with plastic recycling and climate denial - in this case, about whether Exxon and similar energy conglomerates would need political pressure to develop renewables. Politicians won't regulate or invest if people aren't clamoring for it or they think the industry is already doing it.
Can you throw a link to the Defunct land video in the video description?
Defunctland: Walt Disney's City of the Future, E.P.C.O.T. https://youtu.be/tKYEXjMlKKQ?si=KBDzl9TOJU5pypiT
It sure seems that the era of theme parks has past. Large infrastructure projects (including world's fairs, and the Olympics) seem to be a thing of the 20th century and especially the post WWII years in the USA with it's booming economy. They're expensive to build and maintain and as you've shown here, they become dated very quickly. Which I guess is the main theme of Defunctland, which while it features the decline of theme parks, it's also leavened with a good dose of nostalgia. I guess there are plenty of reasons for this such international travel becoming more affordable and available to people around the world and of course you can see anything you want instantly online wherever or on a large HD screen at home. Seems kind of sad though, because the idea of traveling to a special place that amazes, astounds and thrills you is just more impactful and memorable than seeing something on a screen.
The catchy original Universe of Energy theme song is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mf8k9ZA6PM
I adore when my various interests collide - more Disney content, please!
By golly, I think I was just tricked into learning. Thanks for another great video Alec!
Thank you for sharing this…I’m a Disneyland person from way back in in 1959 but no exposure to Disney World.
This is fascinating! Thank you!!
My dad has met Bill Nye a bunch of times and even gave him a set of non-circular gears (my dad manufactured them) and every time bill saw my dad after that he’d say hey it’s the square gears guy!
Perfect length for this flight I just got on which for some reason provides free wifi!
When my mom and I went to Disney (when I was a kid) this was one of our favorite rides. I think we did it two or three times over the trip!