Paul Sprunk (1892-1963) was commissioned by Sawyers to create their own character, Sam
Sawyer, in 1950. He was never credited in the accompanying booklets. He had already worked
on many Hollywood films as a miniature artist and had his own film studio. He created a 3D
stop action animated film, “The Adventures of Sam Space”, which was never released in 3D to
the US theaters. It has been resurrected on the 3D Blu-Ray “3D Rarities”. Paul also created a
number of dioramas for 3D Stori-View cards. Not much appears to be available about this good
miniature artist. Some details are available in “View-Master Memories” by Mary Anne and
Wolfgang Sell.
Unfortunately Sam Sawyer was not as popular as other characters which were heavily advertised
and were shown on TV or movies, so the series was not continues beyond the first 6 reels. The
acquisition by Sawyers of Disney rights also gave the company much more marketable
characters. Both his View-Master reels and Stori-View cards appear on web auction sites.
