How Disney created the Figment popcorn bucket, Epcot’s novelty phenomenon
The Figment popcorn bucket is an annual phenomenon at the Epcot Festival of the Arts, and we spoke with the person who came up with the idea.
The eighth annual Epcot International Festival of the Arts kicked off Jan. 17, 2025 at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla. In addition to Broadway performances and exhibits, the event is, of course, not complete without a new iteration of the Figment popcorn bucket — a novelty item so popular that its debut in 2022 commanded hours-long waits in the park and national news coverage.
“The festivals for Epcot, unlike when you think about our other parks in the portfolio, is truly an attraction, and our guests have embraced it in that way,” said Rick DeCicco, proprietor of Epcot festivals.
During an interview with Attractions Magazine just prior to the launch of this year’s Festival of the Arts — which continues through Feb. 24, 2025 — DeCicco extrapolated the appeal of Figment and the significance of the arts to Epcot.
Keep reading to discover how Figment made Disney history — and hear a tease for the character’s future.
Where to find the Figment popcorn bucket (and other Figment merch)
First things first: You can find the 2025 Figment popcorn bucket exclusively at Epcot from Jan. 17 – Feb. 24, the duration of the Epcot International Festival of the Arts. This year’s design features a transparent light bulb shape as it base, filled with rainbow popcorn and topped with a Figment statuette. It also lights up!
Where to find it: The Figment popcorn bucket is available for purchase at Figment’s Inspiration Station, a festival-exclusive area inside the Odyssey building, itself a flex space between Test Track and the Mexico Pavilion.
How to buy it: Guests use the My Disney Experience app to mobile-order the Figment popcorn bucket from Figment’s Inspiration Station. There is a limit of two popcorn buckets per person.
Photo by Matt Roseboom
More Figment merch: We also spotted the products below in CommuniCore Hall (but they may be available elsewhere throughout the park, too). Fans can shop for a new Figment hat, Spirit Jersey, Loungefly mini-backpack, mouse-ear headband, holiday ornament, and tervis cup, all created specially for the Epcot Festival of the Arts 2025.
Who is Figment and why is he at Epcot?
“Any time we can do something with Figment, it’s big,” DeCicco told us. “It’s important to me, truly.”
Figment, a purple dragon, originated at Epcot in 1983 in an attraction called Journey Into Imagination. That ride is long gone, but a different iteration of it opened in 2002 and still operates today under the monicker of “Journey Into Your Imagination with Figment.”
Photo by Attractions Magazine
In a 1982 book hailing the opening of Epcot, author Richard R. Beard wrote, “Figment is a spontaneous creature, full of energy and childlike wonderment. He is an ever-receptive sponge, soaking up everything he sees around him. Having never been told by an adult that he in incapable of doing this or that, he thinks he can do anything — and he is not far wrong.” 1
Indeed, Figment can do anything, including catapulting the public’s modern fascination with popcorn buckets as novelty collectibles.
“The novelty culture has exploded,” DeCicco said. “If you can create really cool stuff, then people are going to want it and collect it.”
The original Figment popcorn bucket phenomenon
DeCicco’s connection to the Epcot International Festival of the Arts dates back to the event’s inception; he was in the room when it was created. A few years later, he pitched the idea of a Figment popcorn bucket with rainbow popcorn.
Photo courtesy of Disney
Of Epcot visitors’ response to the original 2022 Figment popcorn bucket, he remembered, “The guests so greatly embraced and loved this little guy truly.” He continued, “The first year … because we kept it so top-secret and worked with such a small group in developing and executing that, it took the world by surprise. Seeing the way that the guests reacted, it makes all of the work that much more rewarding.”
‘Japan-level novelty’
Embodying the essence of Figment’s character and the Festival of the Arts itself, DeCicco said many fans modify their popcorn bucket to match their outfits or at-home displays. He even spotted guests bringing it on Disney cruises.
The world took notice — including DeCicco’s colleagues at Tokyo Disney Resort. “Our partners in Japan, overseas at our Disney parks there, do novelties like nobody else does,” said DeCicco. “To have gotten compliments from people that I have a lot of respect for, to say, ‘Wow, that was a Japan-level novelty integration that you guys came up with,’ it’s high praise.”
Photo by Matt Roseboom
It takes two years to develop each Figment popcorn bucket
Developing a novelty item takes about two years. When initially ideating such products for Epcot festivals, DeCicco often first collaborates with Jason Grandt from Walt Disney Imagineering. Grandt is also an author, having written Little Golden Books starring the Orange Bird and Figment
— both of whom are not-so-coincidentally mascots for Epcot festivals.
“We’ll sit down and riff about what we want to do,” DeCicco said of the design process with Grandt. “He is so talented that he’ll sketch it out. That’s step 1, and it flows from there with lots of other folks that are doing 3D modeling and helping us bring it to life.”
The original Figment popcorn bucket from 2022 returned for 2023’s Epcot Festival of the Arts. For 2024, it was time for a change.
“As we thought about developing the second version of the Figment popcorn bucket, we wanted to go in a completely different direction.” DeCicco’s team went with a bucket inspired by the pyramids that house a section of Figment’s pavilion at Epcot. “I know more now about the architecture of the Imagination! atrium than anything.”
Photo courtesy of Disney
As for 2025, the popcorn bucket design is shaped like a lightbulb (complete with functional lights) and features Figment on top.
“We looked at many things in the archives of the original Journey Into Imagination ride and the current Journey Into Your Imagination with Figment and we came up with this one,” DeCicco said. A lightbulb is a prominent part of the logo for the Imagination Institute, the fictional setting of the current version of Figment’s ride. Of course, it’s also a recognizable symbol for many of the themes Figment is all about: ideas, creativity, and imagination.
Artists already designed the next Figment popcorn bucket
“I’m always looking at the next thing, too, and trying to top it,” DeCicco said. “Also, I’m excited to do the next one. With the two-year cycle from idea to delivery, we, of course, have already designed the next one and have thoughts on the next one. The secret ingredient, for me, in most of what I get to do — and I have a pretty incredible role, being able to do this kind of stuff — is nostalgia. I love the incredible DNA that we have in our parks and throughout Disney that we’re able to do these incredible things that people embrace and love year over year.”
Photo by Matt Roseboom
What makes each Epcot festival unique
During a calendar year, Epcot rotates through four distinctly different festivals. DeCicco described to us a metaphor he uses with his teams in approaching what makes each event unique.
- Flower & Garden Festival: “Wow, look at that beautiful tomato. That came from Mother Earth.”
- Food & Wine Festival: “Wow, look what the chef did with that tomato. That’s really cool.”
- Festival of the Holidays: “Wow, that’s what my grandmother used to do with the tomato sauce. That’s how she made it.”
- Festival of the Arts: “That’s a tomato? Wow!”
“Particularly with Festival of the Arts, we operate with what we call our three pillars,” DeCicco elaborated. “That is the culinary arts, the performing arts, and the visual arts. When we can do something that makes all of those things coexist and intersect with one another, then we’ve really hit on something.”
Each festival also has its own mascot: Figment for Festival of the Arts, Remy (from “Ratatouille”) for Food & Wine, Olaf (from “Frozen”) for Festival of the Holidays (succeeding the event’s original mascots, Chip and Dale), and, next up in just a few weeks, the Orange Bird (a 1970s Magic Kingdom character) and Spike the Bee (from vintage Donald Duck cartoons) for Flower & Garden.
DeCicco concluded our conversation with a hint of what’s to come: “This year for Flower & Garden, you’re going to see a lot of more of both Orange Bird and Spike the Bee in terms of our artwork and our style guide and such.”
Do you own a Figment popcorn bucket from the Epcot International Festival of the Arts? Do you plan on visiting the event in the future?
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Literature Citation
- “Walt Disney’s Epcot Center: Creating the New World of Tomorrow” by Richard R. Beard, page 91 (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1982). ↩︎
