“Two tiny wings, eyes big and yellow, horns of a steer, but a lovable fellow. From head to tail, he’s royal purple pigment, and there, voila, you’ve got a Figment.” If you know the music to these words and where they came from, you’re definitely over 21 and a true Disney FUNatic! Dreamfinder and Figment were the stars of my all time favorite attraction!
The song, “One Little Spark” is the description of Figment given by Dreamfinder in the 
original Journey of Imagination ride that ran 1983-1998 before being refurbished as part of the Millennium Celebration at Epcot. The music was played throughout the ride, so by the end, you were singing along. Today’s “Journey” only has hints of the song and has no Dreamfinder.
At the beginning of the dark ride, Figment is created out of the Dreamcatcher and joins Dreamfinder, a jolly wizard-like scientist who teaches Figment how to use his imagination. Figment was composed of various elements Dreamfinder found in his travels – two tiny wings, large yellow eyes, the horns of a steer, a crocodile’s snout, and the childish delight found at a birthday party.
The attraction explores four different areas of the imagination – artistic/painting area; nightmare/book area; show-biz/acting area; and a science area.
In the grand finale Figment is in a large room surrounded by video screens of him being many different things in his imagination: scientist, weight lifter, Alpine mountain climber, top hat/cane dancer, sea captain, pirate in a treasure chest, superhero, and cowboy.
One of the more famous costumes for Figment was a spacesuit. This also goes back to the original show. As the storyline goes, he had aspirations of being an astronaut and during the ride he said “I wish I could be an astronaut. I bet I can use imagination to discover all kinds of new things!”
So if you’re shopping at Epcot and see the merchandised Figment in different costumes, now you will understand where the different looks came from…the original Figment storyline.
Another fun thing to do in the Imagination pavilion at that time was exploring several hands-on activity stations. They included such things as Magic Palette (digital drawing), Lightwriter (laser writing/drawing technology), and Bubble Music (image projection combined with sound).
One of my favori
tes was the Rainbow Corridor/Sensor Maze. It assigned a color to each person entering and then different colors followed along as you walked through. (See photo of Dreamfinder and Figment in the Maze)
Occasionally, during the early years, you could actually catch a real-life Dreamfinder carrying Figment outside the Imagination Pavilion.
Figment was so popular, he became the unofficial mascot. The big eyed, purple dragon is a lot like Mickey Mouse – it’s almost impossible to look at him without feeling good, cracking a smile…”and voila! you have a Figment!”
(photos from Disney Parks Blog)
