The Craziest Rides from EPCOT’s Past

From the day it opened in 1982, EPCOT (then EPCOT Center)  has been an outlier in the stable of Disney theme parks. The complex, somewhat based on Walt Disney’s original concept of an Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, was the first Disney Park that wasn’t based on the “castle park” concept pioneered in Disneyland.

Instead, EPCOT was a “permanent World’s Fair,” featuring the technology-focused Future World and the global tour-esque World Showcase, each of which featured rides and attractions that were very different from Disney’s normal faire. In fact, many could even consider them “weird.”

These are five of the most out there attractions in EPCOT history!

*PLEASE NOTE: We’re not saying these attractions are bad. In fact, many of them are favorites of your intrepid reporter, partially because of how “weird” they are.*

Captain EO

The first, and probably most fondly remembered, “weird” EPCOT attraction on our list is on that arguably only looks weird in retrospect. To those of us looking back on things in the 2020s, a 20+ minute 3D film (that was essentially a longform music video) featuring Michael Jackson using singing and dancing to battle an evil space queen while backed by a band of alien puppets seems quite strange, but it was pretty par for the course for 1986 when Captain EO premiered. 

Jackson wasn’t the only star-power associated with the attraction, as famous names including George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Anjelica Huston were also prominently involved. The film originally ran for just under a decade, and later returned for an additional five years following Michael Jackson’s death. 

Ellen’s Energy Adventure

Of all the changes that EPCOT attractions went through in the mid-1990s, there is perhaps none that seems stranger to modern eyes than what happened to the Universe of Energy. The original attraction was a rather dry set of films about energy which sandwiched an Animatronic segment featuring a trip back to prehistoric times, including dinosaurs. 

In 1996, the ride was rethemed to Ellen’s Energy Adventure. The ride’s storyline now featured Ellen DeGeneres, essentially playing a version of the character she portrayed on her eponymous sitcom, locked in a game of Jeopardy with a childhood foe (“Stupid Judy” played by Jamie Lee Curtis), with all the questions relating to energy. This framing story (which also featured Bill Nye and Alex Trebek) was used to “teach” Ellen about energy through several film segments as well as a reworked version of the prehistoric scene featuring a (totally creeptacular) DeGeneres Animatronic shooing away dinosaurs. Yes, really. 

Suffice to say, the Ellen’s Energy Adventure refurb was dated to 1996 American pop culture pretty much from the moment it premiered and only looked stranger and stranger as the years went on. By the time the attraction closed in 2014, a vast majority of its cast, references, and placement in EPCOT were “weird” to a vast majority of EPCOT visitors. 

Kitchen Kaberet/Food Rocks

Future World’s Land pavilion featured one of Walt Disney Imagineering’s strangest attraction concepts of all time as an opening day attractions. The Kitchen Kabaret show featured a cast of Audio Animatronic foods singing original songs about healthy eating. As strange as that sounds though, the space got even weirder…

In 1994, Kitchen Kabaret was replaced by a similar show called Food Rocks. Food Rocks followed a similar concept to the original, however the original songs were replaced by parodies of famous pop songs like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Good Vibrations,” “Every Breath You Take,” and “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss).” Food Rocks thrilled (or more likely confused) audiences for a decade before closing in 2004. 

The area Kitchen Kabaret/Food Rocks once occupied is now part of the Soarin’ queue. Granted, the hang gliding simulator is one of EPCOT’s most popular attractions today, but honestly we kind of miss seeing The Peach Boys performing “Good Nutrition.”

Body Wars

While the three other attractions we’ve listed are more “weird” in concept than anything else, the final entry on our list is just weird all the way around. Body Wars opened in 1989 as part of the then-new Wonders of Life pavilion. The attraction was a motion simulator attraction that used the same basic technology as Star Tours to take simulate taking guests inside the human body to destroy a splinter.

Yes, INSIDE the body. 

Body Wars took guests through realistic recreations capillaries, cells, the lungs, the brain, and even the heart, all the while vibrating in rhythm with a human heart beat. The experience succeeded almost too well, leading to many cases of motion sickness and guests turned off by the arguably “gory” content. Body Wars was regularly open through the 1990s, before switching to seasonal operation in the 2000s, and finally closing for good in 2007. 

Over the years EPCOT has gone through major changes – and it’s going through some right now, in fact – that have sent many of the park’s weirder attractions off to theme park heaven. However, they still live on in the memories of those who loved… or were simply befuddled…. by them. 

Do you have fond memories of these “weird” EPCOT attractions? Let us know in the comments below.