“That film was one of the seminal moments of my childhood,” he said. Then in June 1979, Labriola spotted Eisenmann in a Doublemint gum commercial and recognized him from “Witch Mountain.” And then I started telling some of my classmates that they could be in the movie - you know, trying to impress the kids when you’re adolescent.” “And then I decided it should be an animated movie. And eventually I decided that I should write a book. “And I got so many of them, I just decided to make stories out of them. “I’ve always wanted to be an artist, but in seventh grade, I started drawing these creatures because I was bored in study hall one day,” Labriola recalled. Labriola grew up on Ido Avenue with his mother, Josephine Falletta, and sister, Carmella, and attended Firestone Park Elementary, Roswell Kent Junior High and Garfield High School. The film brims with pop-culture nostalgia and local history. He produced, directed, animated and edited the 70-minute documentary, which recounts his youthful quest to contact Eisenmann. “I think this might be the biggest screening we’ll have,” Labriola said during a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles. Sunday, May 28, at the Highland Theatre at 826 W. Labriola, 57, will present the Ohio premiere of his documentary “Dear Ike: Lost Letters to a Teen Idol” at 5 p.m. All he wanted to do was talk about the film and its characters.Īnd he had the perfect person in mind for the lead role: Ike Eisenmann, a teen actor who had starred with Kim Richards in the Disney classic “Escape to Witch Mountain” (1975) and its sequel “Return from Witch Mountain” (1978). He stuffed a three-ring binder with his far-out ideas, drawing sketches of sci-fi creatures for an animated epic about a boy visiting a strange planet. As a kid growing up in Firestone Park in the late 1970s, Akron native Dion Labriola dreamed of making a movie.
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