Indeed, and the fact of the matter is, they never should’ve even tried to attempt that. The thing that’ll also always baffle me is why they spent the money to bring Eric Idle back to play Dr. Nigel Channing when apparently they had also gotten Chuck McCann (OG voice of Dreamfinder) in to record snoring behind the Dream Lab door. Like.. wow, seriously? What a “genius” use of budget and show planning. (Note the sarcasm in my last sentence)
Speaking of wasting budget on that redo.. something else I never fully understood was why they decided to recast Corey Burton when he played Figment perfectly in 99-01’s Journey Into YOUR Imagination, to the point he sounds nearly indistinguishable to Billy Barty’s original 83-98 performances of the character. (The Yeah, Oooh!, the laugh, and the Can they imagine too? lines are archival recordings of Billy but the rest is Corey. You can hear the slight difference in the voice). On that note, something fascinating I ought to mention is a D23 podcast interview with Dave Goelz done (possibly a few years ago, if I remember right?) he mentions when he got cast as Figment and got brought in to record the lines. He initially was going to do a Billy Barty impression upon being told he did it in the past, but the casting director insisted to him, not to sound like Billy Barty but to come up with his own character. No idea why, but it’s bizarre.
Btw, interesting thing to note upon hearing a recent Jim Hill podcast, apparently originally, the project was headed by former imagineer David Mumford and he was initially trying to get Dreamfinder in. And (for some reason or another), he wasn’t able to. Something that typically isn’t mentioned in lookbacks either is that Kathy Mangum became the show producer at some point during production. Not exactly sure what the whole story is/what happened there.. but yeah… Really Odd.. EPCOT Legacy website and some old Orlando Sentinel papers at the time mention a little more on that.
Now granted, I believe David (might be misremembering this) sadly passed before the redo was opened. He might have gotten sick during production, again, can’t fully remember. But yeah.. again, seems like it’s got a convoluted backstory for sure. The only other things I know about it is that Larry Nikolai & Chris Turner were artists on it. I know Larry has stated previously, even he believes that the current ride is a downgrade from the original. Larry did this art of Figment watching the TV, in this version, his outfit is green as opposed to yellow, and Dreamfinder is seen on the TV rather than the reused animations we got from the Mirage activity added to ImageWorks during its little revamp it got in the early 90s (such as the additions of Figment’s Coloring Book replacing Bubble Music, a new Fantasy adventure segment being added to Dreamfinder’s School of Drama, Dreamfinder’s Blimp Race replacing the Lumia ball, and the Making Faces photo activity being added). Seemingly confirming the idea of Dreamfinder originally being the host in earlier concepts was indeed a thing being explored at some point. But again, can’t fully confirm on this. Perhaps you (
@Shishagumi ), could contact Larry, Chris, and others and ask them to tell & share more with you? That might be an interesting video to make after your Muppet*Vision 3D video.. the making of the 02-current Journey Into Imagination With Figment redo. Heck, maybe even the 99-01 Journey Into YOUR Imagination too, on that note. Lol! Tom Fitzgerald (supposedly) created that one. Cover both of em. A seemingly very convoluted & bizarre backstory behind the worst revamps of a ride in theme park history, that honestly should be properly documented & set straight by this point.
