One little spark of inspiration is at the heart of all creation. A dream can be a dream-come-true with just that spark from me and you! Alight with wonder, these words were a celebration of optimism, creativity, and joy when they were sung by heroes of EPCOT Center’s early years – the enigmatic Dreamfinder and his imaginative companion, Figment. But when the very creativity this EPCOT classic set out to inspire fell by the wayside, something truly disastrous emerged…
Today, we want to dive deep into the story of a ride that was already loved by a generation and celebrated as a living example of Imagineering’s best… until Disney (literally) tore out its character resulting in one of the most despised and (thankfully) short-lived Disney attractions ever.
It can only be the story behind Epcot’s depressingly unimaginitive Journey into Your Imagination. Although it was only open for two years, the infamy of this debilitating disaster has made it a laughing stock, even for those who never had the chance to see it in person. Short-lived, short-sighted, and plain-old shortened, this dark ride proved to be more of a death than a rebirth.
Today we’ll go in-depth to discuss the history of Epcot’s Imagination pavilion and why Disney fans consider it holy ground. Then, we’ll explore the creation of this long-detested ride, see what it was like to experience it, and find out what replaced it after its short life during Epcot’s Millennium Celebration. Ready to journey into imagination and back? As usual in our in-depth series, the story of Journey into Your Imagination deserves and requires a little background; so let’s spend a moment catching up.
And before we head off, remember that you can unlock rare concept art and audio streams in this story, access over 100 Extra Features, and recieve an annual Membership card and postcard art set in the mail by supporting this clickbait-free, in-depth, ad-free theme park storytelling site for as little as $2 / month! Become a Park Lore Member to join the story! Until then, let’s start at the beginning…
Imagination!
By the late ’70s, designers at Disney’s WED Enterprises were well on the way to developing an entirely new theme park for Walt Disney World – one as radical a reinvention as Disneyland had been two decades earlier. Designed as a “permanent World’s Fair,” EPCOT Center’s Future World realm was comprised of gargantuan, intellectual pavilions dedicated to areas of science and industry (and underwritten by American corporations eager to broadcast their brand and message to Disney World guests).
From energy to nutrition; transportation to ocean exploration, each of Future World’s monumental pavilions was underscored by an informative, lengthy dark ride through the past, present, and future of its area of innovation… Except one.
That’s because Disney’s long-running official photography partner, Kodak, was eager to sponsor a pavilion for the new EPCOT Center. The topic? Kodak representatives reported to Disney that it didn’t matter, so long as it was “something imaginative.”
Imagination was an intentional outlier among the “hard sciences” of Future World, concerned not with products, industry, or consumerism, but with the fascinating concept of where ideas come from; how humans take bits of experiences and ideas and senses and mix them to create new things… Though the pavilion offered gardens of leaping fountains, a 3D theater, and the multi-sensory ImageWorks laboratory (on the second story; inside the glass pyramids themselves), its headliner was a quintessentially-EPCOT dark ride.
Journey into Imagination
On March 3, 1983 – about five months after EPCOT Center itself – Journey into Imagination set flight from Kodak’s Imagination pavilion.
Stepping into the pavilion, guests would find themselves in a sunlit atrium beneath the glass pyramids – a whimsical, pastel lobby of abstract clouds and shapes. There, they’d load into modified Omnimover ride vehicles drift off into one of the most spectacular Imagineering attractions of the era.
From there, a chain of four cabs would proceed into the clouds, meeting up with the enigmatic, red-bearded Dreamfinder and his zany zephyr, the Dreamcatcher. As the two would glide along through the clouds, the musical inventer would sing along to the ride’s Sherman Brothers’ tune, “One Little Spark,” and create his purple dragon, Figment – a living embodiment of creativity and color.
In reality, this opening scene – perhaps the ride’s most awe-inspiring – was an engineering marvel in its own right, with each chain of cabs oriented around a central scene (think Madame Leota of the Haunted Mansion) which was itself one of five duplicates on a massive turntable, rotating at the same rate that the ride advanced. In other words, this extended introduction to Dreamfinder and Figment helped make the pair two of the most beloved characters created just for Disney Parks.
What followed was an epic, musical, 12-minute joyride through Technicolor realms collecting “sparks” of inspiration. The joyful attraction floated through lands of literature, art, performing arts, and science with the whimsical Figment along for every step of the ride, singing the ride’s sensational theme song and giggling all the way!
So beloved was this incredible, 12-minute dark ride, its creation, ride experience, and destruction earned its own in-depth feature that’s a must-read for Disney Parks fans: Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination. It’s there that you’ll find an in-depth ride-through, point-of-view videos, and the full behind-the-scenes story of how Journey into Imagination came to be – a prologue to our Declassified Disaster today.
But here’s what you need to know: Journey into Imagination quickly became a fan favorite, an icon of EPCOT Center, and definitive proof that Imagineering could craft legendary original characters for Disney attractions.
After all, EPCOT Center had intentionally been designed without Disney movies or Disney characters – no princesses, no castles, no Mickey Mouse – so Dreamfinder and Figment were quickly co-opted by Disney Parks fans to be the de facto icons of the park. Journey into Imagination was a pinnacle of theme park storytelling, touching and inspiring a generation of young people who credit it (and other EPCOT originals) with their love for themed entertainment design.
So how could such a good thing go so wrong?
Of course, Disney didn’t set out to turn this masterpiece attraction into the most hated ride Epcot’s ever hosted. So what happened? Read on…