After the war, Walt returned to Kansas City, where he began his career as an advertising cartoonist. Here, in 1920, he created and marketed his first original animated cartoons, and later perfected a new method for combining live-action and animation.

The year 1920 was a pivotal turning point in Walt Disney's life, marking his transition from a commercial artist into a pioneer of animation. Early in the year, after being laid off from the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, Walt formed a short-lived partnership with fellow artist Ub Iwerks called "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists." However, the venture struggled, and Walt soon took a job at the Kansas City Slide Company (later renamed the Kansas City Film Ad Company). It was here that Walt was first introduced to the world of "cel animation" and stop-motion techniques used for theater advertisements. Fascinated by the potential of the medium, he began borrowing a camera from work to conduct experiments in his family's garage during his off-hours. These experiments led to the creation of his first animated shorts, known as "Newman Laugh-O-Grams," which he sold to a local theater owner. This year of intense learning and early failure provided the technical foundation and entrepreneurial spark that would eventually lead him to move to Hollywood in 1923 and build the global entertainment empire that bears his name today.