Dave Goelz to voice Figment in Rehab of Epcot Attraction

Sweetums74

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
95
Reaction score
0
Hey all-
I just read an article on Walt Disney Imagineering's internal news page that said that Dave Goelz is voicing Figment in the rehab of the Journey Into Imagination attraction at Epcot @ Walt Disney World.

Just some back story on the whole thing for those of you not familiar:

In 1983 the Journey Into Imagination attraction at Epcot opened. The basic idea was that you were guided through the world of imagination by a human type character named "Dreamfinder". Early in the journey, Dreamfinder creates a purple dragon- a figment of his imagination- and names him "Figment". Figment was voiced by the late Billy Barty.

In the late 90's- I think 1999- the original attraction was changed to carry over the "Imagination Institute" theme that was introduced a few years earlier in the "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" 3D film that was also shown in part of the Imagination pavilion. Dreamfinder and Figment were taken out of the new attraction (although aspects of Figment could be found in throughout).

To put it bluntly, this new attraction was pretty bad. IMHO it removed the charm and whimsy and was quite stale (a lot shorter too). This view was shared by a good portion of other people too.. many who demanded the return of their beloved purple dragon.

So this summer, Figment is being added back into the attraction. The original song will be coming back as well.

I didn't know how they were going to bring Figment back w/o having him speak unless they were going to utilize recordings from the original attraction or recordings that Billy Barty made that were never used.

Now I know. Dave Goelz is doing it. I'm sure that he has done a fine job and I'm really looking forward to going back to the attraction in a month or two (maybe even only a few weeks).

I'll give a report.

Chris
 

scarecroe

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2002
Messages
1,816
Reaction score
384
That's pretty cool news, thanks for posting.

According to the IMDb, Jeff Bennett did the voice of Figment on the "House of Mouse" TV series. I wonder why he's not doing the new voice. Not that I'm complaining, I'm all about Dave Goelz.

Please do report back into us when you've had a chance to see it.

I wonder, was the song ever released on any of the Disneyland/World Park CDs that have been released over the years? It would be cool if Dave's version made it to a CD. There would yet again be another product on the market that I would buy simply because of the Muppet connection; a product I'd probably not buy otherwise :stick_out_tongue:
 

fishbone

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2002
Messages
176
Reaction score
0
figment

i loved that ride when iwas a kid.do you remember the green screen?you could fly ,or be in a fairy tale.that was the shiznit.
 

FER SURE

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
202
Reaction score
0
I could go on and on about the whole backstory to the Imagination pavillion problems. The problem there is my fingers would fall off. What I will tell you is that this redress was long talked about but never acted upon. When the attraction did shut down it was very unexpected. There was only about a 4 day announcement that the attraction was going down. Ths is very odd considering we almost always got 2 weeks to a month notice. You can tell that this was a major problem for Disney because when most of their attractions go down they get a big send off. Not this time as JIYI was a big embarrassment for them. They just want to clean it up.
 

Janice & Mokey's Man

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
3,698
Reaction score
113
Originally posted by scarecroe
I wonder, was the song ever released on any of the Disneyland/World Park CDs that have been released over the years?
Yeppers, "One Little Spark", the attraction's theme song, can be found on the now-rare "The Original Soundtrack of Disneyland and Walt Disney World" which came out in '91. Findin' that, though, can be tricky.

And Scott, have you checked all your emails in a while? Just wonderin' if you ever got a couple I sent you last month...
 

radionate

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2002
Messages
3,078
Reaction score
36
Out of curiosity, are they creating new sets? The reason I ask this is that Disney had some of the ride props up for sale on Ebay! The big giant balloon thingy was there, with the audio animatronic figment!
 

FER SURE

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 14, 2002
Messages
202
Reaction score
0
There is no way they wouldnt make new sets. They are going to try and but as much space between the new attraction and the old one as possible. Of all of Imagineerings latest screw-ups this is the one that hard core fans balked at the most. As as side note I persoanlly found it funny when they auctioned off the Dreamfinder Ballon. When that auction first went up it included the Figment figure. The auction was pulled and then relisted later without the figure. I can only specualte as to the reasons.
 

EmmyMik

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2002
Messages
1,386
Reaction score
30
This now leads to the question...

does this mean Disney owns Dave Goelz?

More importantly, does this mean that Disney now owns Dave's glasses?

:big_grin:


(of course, I'm kidding. Everyone knows that Dave's glasses are owned by BIC)...

:big_grin:
 

Sweetums74

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
95
Reaction score
0
Originally posted by scarecroe
Incidentally, is this the same song that is heard in the flash intro to the The Magic of Walt Disney Imagineering site?
Scott it is the same song.
"One Little Spark" is frequently in rotation on Disney Park internet radio stations on Live365.com. A few stations even have the audio from the entire attractions.

Not to condone the practice, but I'm sure that you could probably find an MP3 on the net if you tried.

Chris
 
Top