Trivia / Journey into Imagination

• The Cameo: The original flying machine that Dreamfinder and Figment rode in the ride's original incarnation was repurposed into a prop that for years hung in the now-defunct "Mouse Gear" store. When the store was renovated, the prop was moved to the Walt Disney Archives, where it currently resides.
• Creator's Apathy: In 2021, Eric Idle admitted that he doesn't remember filming his scenes for the third version of the ride nor has he ever ridden it.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Tony Baxter, designer and one of the original co-creators of the original ride, has expressed dissatisfaction with its removal and replacement and has even expressed a willingness to step out of retirement and redo the attraction again to be closer to the original ride. The ride's other co-creator, Steve Kirk, while a little more accepting of it, also admits to being a little disappointed by it when asked.
  • Michael Eisner is reportedly stated to have immediately hated the second version of the ride and quickly ordered it to be replaced with the third and current version shortly after riding it. Disney in general prefers not to acknowledge the attraction and has only done so very rarely in the years following its closure.
  • When asked by Kevin Perjurer if he thought the original ride and its intention were still alive or if it was "defunct" for intents and purposes, Ron Schneider didn't even let Kevin finish the question before giving a "It's gone. It's completely gone."
• Cut Song: Before settling on "One Little Spark" by The Sherman Brothers, the ride's theme song was originally a very different track written by Bob Moline (who has written several songs for Epcot attractions, such as "Golden Dreams" for The American Adventure and "Energy (You Make the World Go 'Round)" for Universe of Energy).
  • "One Little Spark" itself had one and a half verses cut from the original ride's soundtrack ^note said cut lyrics are included in the 1994 songbook A Souvenir Disney Songbook - Favorite Songs from Disneyland & Walt Disney World. The half verse that was kept was heard just before lightning flashes in the opening scene.
• Demand Overload: During EPCOT's annual Festival of the Arts in 2022, one booth was selling Figment popcorn buckets. Despite the ride falling out of favor over the years, the buckets ended up proving wildly popular and led to lines that stretched miles around the park, with cast members reporting wait times of up to seven hours. While the stock never ran out, it's extremely rare that even new rides get lines that long, much less a food container.
  • To a lesser extent, in September 2023, some guests waited up to five hours to meet Figment on the first day of him returning to doing meet and greets.
• Development Gag: The Flubber cameo in the current ride is a nod to a scrapped revamp; see What Could Have Been.
• Development Hell: The current version of the ride was reportedly meant to be a temporary solution to the poorly received second iteration until they can get around to redoing it a fourth time. More than two decades later, the "temporary" replacement has seemingly failed to live up to that claim.
• Dummied Out:
  • The upstairs of the pavilion was the original location of The ImageWorks until it was moved downstairs during the ride's change to the second incarnation. However, as revealed by explorers that were lucky to get upstairs without getting caught, much of the original ImageWorks is still left intact, including its kiosks, signage and the Rainbow Corridor Tunnel. Part of the upstairs would later be turned into a Disney Vacation Club lounge, with much of the ImageWorks being blocked off behind walls in a likely attempt to prevent urban explorers and anyone else from accessing the area. The Rainbow Corridor tunnel was also dismantled and removed to make room for the air conditioning system for the aforementioned DVC lounge.
  • The original attraction featured a large turntable that was meant to pick up a section of the ride cars and synchronize with the opening scene. Having the cars synchronize was always a chronic problem with the attraction. The speed ramp that was meant to synchronize with the cars at the exit was soon turned off after opening and later removed. The new version of the ride has the guests cross where this turntable once was with the boarding platform part of that previous turntable.
• Executive Veto: Figment was originally intended to be colored green, but this was rejected by the ride's then-sponsor Kodak, due to Figment's green color being too reminiscent of their rival, Fujifilm. This would lead Baxter and Kirk to give him the royal purple pigment he has now.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • The idea for Dreamfinder and Figment came from the Professor Marvel's House of Illusions attraction that was a part of the scrapped Discovery Bay concept for Disneyland. The proposed show would've been hosted by an eccentric scientist who bred dragons as one of his many hobbies.
  • Figment got his name when creator Tony Baxter was watching an episode of Magnum, P.I.
  "I was watching Magnum PI […] on TV. He was in the garden and the butler, Higgins, had all these plants and they were all uprooted. It was a mess. Magnum had been hiding a goat out there and the goat had eaten the plants. Higgins said, ‘Magnum! Magnum! Come out here! Look at this! Something has been eating all the plants in the garden.’ And Magnum says, 'Oh, it’s just a figment of your imagination.' And Higgins said, ‘Figments don’t eat grass!’ I thought, 'There is this name, the word 'figment' that in English means a sprightly little character. But no one has ever visualized it, no one had ever drawn what a figment is. So, here is a great word that already has a great meaning to people, but no one has ever seen what one looks like.' So we had the name that was just waiting for us to design the shape for it."
• Money, Dear Boy: Ron Schneider believes that the reason Journey into YOUR Imagination was revamped into Journey into Imagination with Figment was because Disney realized they were making a lot of money from Figment merchandise and sales would go down if he wasn't a main focus in the ride.
• The Other Darrin:
  • The unused short film, Dreamfinder Run, has Figment be voiced by veteran Disney voice actor Will Ryan as opposed to Billy Barty.
  • In Journey into Imagination with Figment, veteran Muppet performer Dave Goelz replaces the late Billy Barty as the voice of Figment.
  • Disney imagineer Joe Rhode took the place of Ron Schneider as the live action version of Dreamfinder for the "Dreamfinder's School of Drama" in the original Image Works.
• Prop Recycling:
  • Figment's open house is the Upside Down lab from Version 2 repainted in a Figment-y style.
  • The Sound Lab uses the same set and train gag, save for Figment hiding in the giant speaker box.
  • Where Figment says "Imagination is a blast!", the dropping walls and lifting ceiling are reused from the second brain scan of the second version.
• Release Date Change: Journey into Imagination was originally intended to open alongside the rest of Epcot on October 1, 1982 and promotional materials at the time marketed it as an opening day attraction. However, while the Imagination pavilion itself was open that day, the ride itself would not be completed on time and would be delayed for five more months until it was finally completed on March 5, 1983.^note A short film titled Dreamfinder Run was planned to play in the Magic Eye Theatre during the five month delay period. The short film was completed in three days and would feature a preview of Magic Journeys and a prologue hosted by The Dreamfinder. However (and much to Disney's relief), Magic Journeys was able to be completed on time and would play in the Magic Eye Theatre during the delay period, with the ImageWorks opening two months later.
• Role Reprise: Ron Schneider reprised his role as the meet and greet version of Dreamfinder and Figment onstage at Destination D in 2011.
• Technology Marches On: Of the stuff that's left at the ImageWorks, some of the increasingly dated-looking software used to run the exhibits are still running on Windows 98 computers. In fact, the current version of the ride itself is still running on Windows 98!
• Two Voices, One Character: Due to Chuck McCann being unable to finish recording his lines as Dreamfinder for the original ride, Ron Schneider had to fill in for him in the last few scenes starting with the Science realm.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Early plans for the first incarnation of the ride had guests ascend to the second floor, where the finale would have involved a rotating set like the opening of the final ride before being dropped off on the upper level.
  • The second incarnation of the ride was originally going to be themed to Flubber, but it didn't perform well-enough at the box office to justify such a revamp. A quick nod to this did end up making it on the ride though in the form of a cameo.
  • According to Ron Schneider on the Defunctland podcast, a Disney imagineer who worked on the third version told him that the third version was intended to be far more ambitious and grander in scope. However, budget constraints enforced by the Disney executives would force the imagineers to scrap a lot of their more ambitious ideas for the attraction in favor of what it is currently.
  • There have supposedly been multiple proposals to redo the attraction yet again, but this time to bring back Dreamfinder. Said proposals continue to get shelved due to the budget being used elsewhere in the park and a lack of interest from Disney.
  • One controversial concept that had gone around involved removing Figment entirely and making the attraction into an Inside Out ride. The film's director, Pete Docter, apparently hated this idea, as he did not want an Inside Out attraction to come at the expense of Figment. He even had surveys for the park guests about Figment made to prove to those that wanted this that people still love the character.
  • Concept art shows that Figment was originally supposed to be green, but since that was a main logo color of then sponsor Kodak's rival Fujifilm, he was made purple in the final attraction.
  • In the first incarnation of the ride, the Theater realm was supposed to have a scene where Figment chases a ballerina across the stage. There was no time to implement it though and a scene where Dreamfinder is conducting a laser light show while dressed as an orchestra conductor was put in its place.
  • There was originally intended to be a version of the ride for Disneyland Resort back when Disney was developing WestCOT, with the ride supposedly going for a different and more unique direction as opposed to being a clone of the pre-existing Epcot attraction. However, just like WestCOT itself, plans for a Disneyland version of the ride would fall through.
  • Dreamfinders, a television show loosely based on the ride, was supposed to be one of the first TV shows aired on the Disney Channel when it first launched back in 1983; the series would have focused on Dreamfinder and Figment teaming up with other residents of the Dream Port plus some ordinary children to protect the realm of imagination from a villain called Fear and his minions (with said children being inspired by their experiences to come up with solutions to their ordinary problems). While some characters were cast and a few scripts were written, the show was never filmed according to the Walt Disney Archives Chief Archivist Emeritus Dave Smith, and no explanation was given as to why the plug was pulled on this project. A promo for the show can be found here
• Word of God: While the Dreamfinder's flying machine is unnamed in the ride proper, Disney eventually coined it "The Dream-Catching Machine" when the prop got displayed during a Walt Disney Archives exhibit.

---