History of short films

Longer films were rare before the 1920s, so length-based categories had little meaning. By the 20s, a ticket purchased a varied program including a feature and several supporting works from categories such as second feature, short comedy, 5-10 minute cartoon, and newsreel.
Short comedies were especially popular, and typically came in a serial or series such as the Our Gang films, or the many outings of Charlie Chaplin's 'Little Tramp' character. Although there was often no set release schedule, these series could be considered somewhat like a modern TV sitcom - lower in status than feature films but nevertheless very popular (comedians such as Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton all 'graduated' from shorts to features).
Animated cartoons came principally as short subjects, as did newsreels. Virtually all major film production companies had units assigned to develop and produce shorts, and many companies, especially in the silent and very early sound era, produced mostly or only short subjects.
In the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, the studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature, a cartoon and little else. With the rise of the double feature as a cinema programming format, two-reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. Hal Roach, for example, moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, and halved his popular Our Gang films to one reel. By the 1940s he had moved out of short films altogether (though MGM continued the Our Gang shorts until 1944).
Later shorts include George O'Hanlon's Joe McDoakes films, and the animated work of studios such as Walt Disney Productions, Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons, Walter Lantz and Fleischer/Famous Studios. By the mid 1950s, with the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, The Three Stooges being the last major series of two-reelers, ending in 1959, and the cartoon short began to fade beginning in the early 70s due to rising inflation, with The Pink Panther being the last regular theatrical cartoon short series, ending in 1980, despite the fact it began in 1964, when most cartoon studios were closing down or turning to television. Short film had become a medium for student, independent and specialty work.