Shorts
1926 found the Disney studios working as hard as ever on the "Alice" series, but towards the end of the year, it seemed that the series was beginning to run out of steam. Margaret Winkler had married Charles Mintz, retired, and turned the business over to Mintz. The interplay between Alice and Julius was beginning to come unglued and the accent began to set more on the animated characters rather than the live action. Mintz began to show reservations that the cartoons were just not funny anymore. In return, Disney began to work harder on gags, which naturally were given to the animated portions of the shorts.
A few other developments affected the animation as well. One was Ub Iwerks' beginning to rely less and less on model sheets. To this time, most animation had been done by tracing the characters from the model sheet. Iwerks began to rely less on them, and draw in a more freehand style which gave the animation a more fluid and "realistic" style. The other change was that, although the storyboard method was still years in the future, the shorts began to be scripted. This gave the animators more specific directions to go in, rather than just general spoken ideas.
Two other changes had far reaching results. The Walt Disney Studio, as it was now called, moved into a more spacious office on Hyperion Avenue; the birth of the Hyperion studio. And Walt, concerned that his youthful appearance would work against him during contract negotiations, grew the mustache which would stay with him throughout the rest of his life.
