Wednesday, January 03, 2007

An Early EPCOT Character Connection

While the debate about characters in Epcot rages on, let’s go back about twenty years and remember when two of Disney’s biggest stars were featured in a small and unusual way in one of Future World’s original attractions.This comic book was a giveaway for a number of years in the mid-1980s to visitors to the Exxon-sponsored Universe of Energy. I picked up a copy at the Energy Exchange in Commnicore East in either 1987 or 1988. The copyright on the cover is 1985.

Mickey is a regular scientific genius in the story, as he gives Goofy an education in energy.
He spouts lines like “The sediment continues to decompose and the hydrogen and carbon combined chemically to form hydrocarbon compounds,” and even addresses relevant political issues when saying “Sometimes we can’t depend on other countries. Since 1973, our foreign oil supply has been cut off twice!”

Here are the activity pages from the comic’s inside front and back covers. Enjoy!

4 comments:

DisneyDave said...

If you ventured into World Showcase from Sept. '87 to Sept. '88 you would have seen me over at the Canadian exhibit wearing one of those goofy lumberjack outfits!

Jeffrey Pepper said...

David--I was there for trips in both March and September of '88. It's pretty likely that I saw you at some point, as we spent a lot of time in EPCOT back then. EPCOT in 1988 are some of my best WDW memories.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I have this exact comic book. Didn't even remember owning it until I was going through boxes of stuff one day in the basement.

DisneyDave said...

There were 43 of us from 11 countries in teh exchange program. Being a Disney fan the year was a dream come true for me as I was able to go back stage and see things regular tourists didn't have the opportunity to see. The program I was in was the best one offered. Among other things weonly worked a 4 day week and on our 5th day we had personalized tours of all the backstage facilities and we received lectures from managers in guest relations, media relations, hotel management, etc. If I sent you a pic of me in my costume you'd die laughing! I know I chuckle when I see it...which is not too often as the yearbook we produced is buried deep, deep deep within the bowels of a steamer trunk.