Figment Meet & Greet Coming to EPCOT!

Figment is returning to EPCOT and will have a new meet & greet for a limited time. In this post, we’ll share everything we know, plus some commentary and a look at the last time Figzilla appeared in the park near Journey into Imagination.

This announcement was made during the “A Boundless Future: Disney Parks, Experiences and Products” presentation at D23 Expo 2022. Disney Parks, Experiences and Products Chairman Josh D’Amaro shared the news during a brief segment about the future of the new neighborhoods at EPCOT.

As long time readers no doubt know, Figment is my favorite Disney character. Always will be. Not because of the current attraction or his personality today, but because of what he was in the original Journey into Imagination in the 1980s through mid-1990s. He was whimsical and inquisitive, funny and endearing.

Figment embodied the best things about childhood curiosity, and resonated deeply with adults who saw a little bit of their kids in Figment (or vice versa), and both kids and adults who saw a little of themselves in the character. The reason for the original Figment’s success is profoundly simple: he showed us all the best of ourselves.

My obsession with all things Journey into Imagination, Figment and Dreamfinder have been well-documented on this blog. In a matter of speaking, this original EPCOT Center attraction and these characters were my one little spark into Disney fandom.

The now-defunct FigmentsImagination.com (available here via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine) was my first foray into the online Disney community, back in the late 1990s while I was still just a dorky high schooler.

As a dorky adult, I scoured eBay and grew a formidable Figment collection after Sarah and I first returned together to Walt Disney World. A few years later, I had the good fortune of meeting Tony Baxter and briefly discuss the original pavilion with him.

Later that same trip, I had the near out of body experience of seeing Dreamfinder, Figment, and Richard Sherman perform “One Little Spark.” In fact, this is all so significant to me that Figment and Dreamfinder made my Top 10 Disney Experiences (So Far) List twice.

While this news is not nearly as exciting as Journey into Imagination 3.0 would be (a perpetual entry in my D23 Expo Wishlist for Walt Disney World), it’s still an exciting announcement. It was says to me that Walt Disney World hasn’t forgotten about Figment.

My sincere hope is that this meet & greet line is perpetually the longest at Walt Disney World, similar to the popcorn bucket sold at this year’s EPCOT Festival of the Arts. That proved that Figment still has serious popularity, drawing power, and merchandising potential.

I’m not naive enough to think that one little popcorn bucket–or even a meet & greet–means a new Journey into Imagination will be greenlit imminently (I’ve gotten my hopes up for nothing too many times in the past), but it’s certainly a positive for the longevity of the character and his future prospects.

As for the Figment meet & greet, here’s a look at us when we were many moons younger. This costumed character was fondly known as Figzilla, but disappeared before the character’s current rise in popularity.

Our guess is that the “limited time” Figment character that will meet & greet guests in EPCOT is very similar. Perhaps a bit smaller in statue to avoid the comparisons to Godzilla, but it’s unlikely he’s accompanied by Dreamfinder. We would love to be wrong about that one, though! 

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Your Thoughts

What do you expect from the return of Figment’s meet & greet character to EPCOT? What would you like to see happen with Journey into Imagination in an ideal world? Are you excited? Skeptical? A little of both? Any other thoughts, insights, etc? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!

17 Responses to “Figment Meet & Greet Coming to EPCOT!”
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