The Uncomfortable Truth About Figment in Disney World

For over four decades, Figment has been one of the most beloved and enduring original characters of the Disney Parks canon. However, that very popularity is arguably why the ride that bears his name has been allowed to decay for over 20 years.

Now, I’m gonna preface something here: I’m a huge Figment. I own numerous souvenirs, do the meet & greet, and have Figment tattooed on my forearm-level Figment fan. Suffice to say, I don’t say this with any malice or anti-Figment feelings. That out of the way, I also think that the character’s continued popularity — and Disney’s continued capitalization on popularity — is why the current version of Journey Into Imagination hasn’t undergone a major refurbishment in decades, despite fans consistently calling for one.

The character we know today as Figment was first imagined (no, I couldn’t resist) by Imagineer Tony Baxter prior to the development of EPCOT Center. When designing the planned Disneyland expansion, Discovery Bay, Baxter planned for a character named Professor Marvelous and his GREEN dragon assistant to host a stage show.

Discovery Bay went unbuilt, but when Baxter and a team of Imagineers were tasked with the seemingly impossible task of crafting a pavilion and attraction based on the somewhat nebulous concept of “imagination”, he brought the concept of the characters with him, evolving them into the whimsical scientist Dreamfinder and his purple dragon assistant Figment.

Opening in 1983, a few months after the park proper, Journey Into Imagination was a tour de force attraction. Housed inside massive glass pyramids — a concept reused from an early Tony Baxter concept for The Land Pavilion — the omnimover dark ride took guests on an adventure through the concept of imagination, with the two lead characters as their guide, all set to the iconic song “One Little Spark”.

Its most memorable moment was arguably the first scene, which featured large moving turntables that moved guests around the Dreamfinder’s enormous, steampunk-inspired airship as they learned about the characters.

Baxter once described the thought process behind the scene as such: “If you’re telling the story of Little Mermaid or Snow White, everyone already knows who they are, what they talk like, how they sing, etc. But in a ride like Imagination, you’re not familiar with the characters going into it. This opening scene allows you to meet Dreamfinder, understand how he created Figment, and get to know Figment’s personality, so at the end of those four minutes, you know the characters.”

The ride and the characters quickly became fan favorites, with Figment in particular becoming a bit of a mascot for the park. However, by the late 1990s, EPCOT had a problem. In the park’s first decade, its attractions and pavilions had been paid for by corporate sponsors like General Motors for World of Motion, General Electric for Horizons, and Kodak for Journey into Imagination.

By the end of the decade, many of those sponsorship agreements were expiring, and Disney was struggling to get these companies to re-up. Kodak was no exception, as the film company was just beginning to feel the industry-changing effects of digital photography.

Disney and Kodak did come to a new agreement, with the caveat that the ride would be refurbished. So, in late 1998, the classic Journey into Imagination closed. A year later, in October 1999, the ride reopened as Journey Into Your Imagination (with the pavilion name changed to Imagination!) as part of the Walt Disney World Millennium Celebration.

To say the new attraction was different would be a massive understatement. Dreamfinder and Figment were eliminated, and the ride’s storyline was built around Eric Idle’s Honey, I Shrunk the Audience character Dr. Nigel Channing, leading a tour of the Imagination Institute. The ride was physically changed as well, with the track shortened and the turntable sequence eliminated completely.

Journey Into Your Imagination opened to almost universal disdain, by fans, theme park critics, and even some from inside Disney ripping the new ride to shreds. The criticism was so intense that Disney closed the attraction in October 2001 after only 2 years, giving it one of the shortest lifespans in Disney theme park history.

The attraction reopened in June of 2002 as Journey Into Imagination With Figment, and the reaction was… muted at best. This new incarnation was essentially a light retheme of the ‘Your Imagination version, with Figment shoehorned in and interacting with Dr. Nigel Channing on a trip through the Imagination Institute. While it was “better” than the 1999 version of the attraction, many fans hoped it was simply a placeholder until the ride could be properly refurbished into something close to its original incarnation.

That was almost a quarter century ago, and the ride has been essentially untouched since. However, Figment has arguably become an even bigger part of EPCOt. He’s served as a mascot for several of its festivals…

… drawn large lines for SEVERAL popcorn buckets…

… become the star of one of the park’s more popular meet & greets…

…. and, most importantly from a Disney perspective, moves a TON of merchandise. From Funko POPs and figurines to statuettes, ears, and accessories, you can find representations of the purple dragon across many of Disney World’s gift shops.

In turn, Disney seems to see no “need” to upgrade the attraction and divert funds that can be used elsewhere, because they’re already reaping the rewards of the character’s popularity with the ride in its current form.

There’s no denying that Figment remains a hugely popular – and marketable – character for Disney. However, when it comes to Journey into Imagination, that popularity may actually be doing more harm than good. Stay tuned to AllEars for more Disney World deep dives.

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Are you a Figment fan? Let us know in the comments below.

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