While Josh Gad was visiting Walt Disney World as a celebrity narrator for the 2024 Candlelight Processional at the EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays, he spoke for Disney fans everywhere with his social media posting: Journey Into Imagination With Figment is not an attraction worthy of the park’s mascot, Figment.
While Disney has been more than willing to cash in on Figment’s popularity over the last few years, including mountains of merchandise during various festivals, and most notably, the extremely popular release of the first popcorn bucket in 2022, they have been very quiet about updating the attraction, which fans overwhelmingly want to see replaced with something better for the lovable purple dragon.
On his recent visit, Gad, the Tony Award-nominated and Grammy-winning actor and singer noted that the ride wasn’t up to par, stating on his Instagram: “Hey @waltdisneyimagineering 📞 me. We need to give this guy the ride update he deserves. 🙏”.
Gad, an unapologetic Disney fan, who officially became a Disney Legend in 2022, is already featured across the park at EPCOT, as he is the voice of Olaf on “Frozen Ever After”. Seeing as Gad would like a call from WDI, it seems maybe he is politicking to be involved in any update of the attraction the should happen. Hey, who among us wouldn’t use our fame to be a part of EPCOT history, right?
There have been several moments over the last few years when Disney fans had reasons for hope. In 2022, Chairman of Disney Experiences Josh D’Amaro announced a new Figment meet & greet for EPCOT, and many fans expressed hope that Disney understood the fan community appetite for an attraction revamp. Guests have been patiently waiting for the other show to drop, so to speak, and for Disney to finally put a good attraction back in the Imagination Pavilion. At this point, the current version of the ride is the longest-running, outliving what was considered one of the greatest theme park rides in history.
Sadly, there have been no announcements made about improving the attraction to make it more befitting the beloved purple dragon with a runaway imagination.
Journey Into Imagination opened in 1983, and was created by legendary Imagineer Tony Baxter and Steve Kirk. It featured Figment and Dreamfinder as your hosts. It then closed in 1998 for refurbishment, and reopened in October of 1999 as Journey Into YOUR Imagination. It was shortened, featured very little Figment, and Dreamfinder was puzzlingly eliminated entirely. Guest response to the second iteration of the attraction was extremely negative, and the ride was closed just two years later. Finally, Disney opened the current version, Journey Into Imagination With Figment. While an improvement over the second iteration, it has failed to draw large crowds, and is largely viewed as a shell of the original ride. Dreamfinder remains completely absent from the attraction. You can check out our detailed history of the attraction here.
While fans have complained about the current, aging iteration of the ride for years, a passionate and high-profile voice like that of Josh Gad is a welcome sound to fans of Figment.
What do you think of Journey Into Imagination With Figment? Do you want to see updates?
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