Life at the Studio

Life at the Studio, also known as Life at the Seattle Studios, Life at the Argosy Studios, Life at the Animation Studio, and Life at Argosy, is a series of “ashcan-copy”, “limited-animation” black-and-white short film cartoons made by Argosy Media and MTM Enterprises employees, starring exaggerated caricatures of high-ranking Argosy and MTM officials. The voices are often provided by a single person, who is also the animator.

The series was unknown to the public, serving as a sort of internal in-joke, until 1995, when it was decided to show a few episodes at CatCon ‘95, the first instalment in the long-running series of official Aaron fan conventions known as CatCon; they have been shown at every CatCon, and as Easter Eggs on several DVD and USB Video releases, since then.

History
The series started in 1987, when disgruntled animators who were supposed to be working on The Spacebots, a property created solely for merchandising purposes, created a series of short films centring around the interactions between the two highest-ranking employees in the animation division; Ellen Peck and Paul Lopez. More and more animators made more and more mockeries of their superiors, and over time, the cast expanded to include more Argosy staff.

The series was only known to these within Argosy until 1995, when the powers-that-be decided to show a few episodes at CatCon ‘95, the first major Aaron Show fan convention. Since then, a few episodes have almost always been shown at Argosy conventions, mostly CatCons, but also a few ZippyCons and more general ArgosyCons.

The series is still being made today, and in fact, is now being encouraged by Argosy higher-ups; Ellen Peck has encouraged animators to work on their own personal projects within the studio.

Classic/Aaron Show era
The series started in the late-1980s, but reached its prime in the days of The Aaron Show.
 * Ellen Peck, the woman in charge of Argosy’s animation division, known as the “Wicked Witch of the (pacific north)West”. She is a massive alcoholic, and is also addicted to inhalants and mushrooms. She has an arsenal of weapons at her disposal to “dispose of” unruly co-workers, and is often prone to outbursts. In shorts produced after the real Ellen got married in 1995, it is implied that she domestically abuses her family members.
 * Paul Lopez, the original deuteragonist. He was portrayed as even more of an alcoholic and substance-abuser than Ellen, and was even more prone to outbursts. Since the real Paul Lopez died, this character no longer appears, and “I’ll get rid of you, like I did to Paul Lopez” became one of Ellen’s catchphrases in the shorts.
 * Nathan Blake, depicted as a greedy person obsessed with money. He didn’t want the animation job in the first place, but it was the only job that paid him enough money for his (overly-high) standards (referring to the fact that Argosy’s corporate minimum wage has always been 25 dollars per hour for all positions). He is known within the series for trying to scam the other animators out of money using elaborate schemes.
 * Robert Stainton, depicted as actually being a nice person who is subjected to the insanity and inanity of his co-workers. He is often depicted as near-identical to Santa Claus, and in one short, it is shown that he once was Santa Claus, but was fired from the North Pole after the reindeer staged a hostile takeover. As a reference to his pre-Argosy career at his own Stainton Labs, which created the Rotanimation machine, he is often seen creating robots and other gadgets to make life easier for other animators, which are often abused by Ellen and company.
 * Terry Ward, depicted as a pirate who lost his leg in a battle (the real Terry Ward lost his leg to a rabid dog before Argosy hired him), and was hired by Argosy after “the Somalians took over the pirate industry”. He often tells long stories about his life in piracy, that cause the other characters to doze off; this may be a reference to how Ward told long, rambling monologues at fan conventions.
 * James Clayton, depicted as a literal clown. He is even more insane than Ellen, and will often do ridiculous things just to get more attention from his co-workers. He often tries to steal Ellen’s drugs, which ends badly when Ellen finds out
 * Brandon McAbee and Andrew Auld, the creators of Mercy and Friends and Auldtopia Kids, respectively, who are seen as people working on “other shows”, and come in to the studio sometimes to complain about the Aaron writers “making too much noise”. In shorts made by their own shows’ animators, they are portrayed as Ellen Peck wannabes with their own substance abuse issues; to distinguish the two from each other and Ellen herself, Brandon is often portrayed as a hoarder who keeps useless stuff in the animators’ studio because “he might need it someday”, and Andrew is often portrayed as a manchild with a massive drinking problem worse than Ellen’s.
 * The Head Office in Canada, a depiction of the Canadian Shaw/Corus company, which owned Argosy in the late-90s/early-00s. Portrayed as a group of beavers working from a dam, who keep claiming “everything’s fine in Seattle”, even when it’s obviously not.

Mitchell van Morgan
The first few Mitchell van Morgan games had Easter eggs featuring Ellen and her crew in LatS style, along with versions of the games’ co-creators.
 * Peter Bullard, depicted as a crazy old man who thinks the end of the world is coming soon, and rides a motorcycle everywhere, even indoors.
 * Jihee Nam, depicted as a Singaporean spy accidentally hired by MTM Interactive, and who is trying her hardest to make a video game idea that actually “works”, so that she can get back to her spy career.

Argosy Interregnum era
Even though, when Nathan Blake had left the company (before returning in 2012) and the original Aaron Show was over, in a period known as the “Argosy Interregnum”, the tradition continued.
 * Ellen Peck, in this era, was portrayed as an elderly womanchild, who sat on a rocking chair knitting most of the time, and hoarded Aaron and other Argosy merchandise.
 * Kayla Greene, creator of Zippy, depicted as “Ellen Peck mkII”, with only slightly less of a drinking problem than the “classic” shorts’ Ellen. She has all the same issues Ellen had “back in the day”, and then some.
 * Cameron Perez, creator of The Mel Twins, depicted as “the reincarnation of Paul Lopez”, referencing his distant relation to Lopez. He is often seen trying to murder Ellen Peck (or Kayla Greene, who he thinks is Ellen’s daughter), and often introduces himself as “Paul Lo… I mean Cameron Perez”.

Modern Argosy era
After Nathan Blake returned to the company, production on a new Aaron series started with Peck at the helm.
 * Ellen Peck returned to being depicted as a drug addict and abuser, but is now in charge of Argosy as a whole, replacing the Head Office in Canada, and as a result, can fire people for no reason. (However, these people almost always come back in the next short.)
 * Nathan Blake is still depicted as a greedy scammer, but he now agrees with Ellen more often than not, like how the real Nathan Blake is now on good terms with Ellen.
 * Robert Stainton is still depicted as a nice guy, but now with a defining flaw: he will gladly throw money away (such as donating the entire animation budget to charity, or paying the electric company 10 times the actual bill), a reference to his philanthropic efforts in real life.
 * Blake Kenimeir, depicted as a more aggressive and greedy version of the “classic” Nathan Blake, who will do anything to get money, even attempt to kill people; while Nathan is content with elaborately scamming people, Kenimeir will just flat-out take money from Ellen’s purse when he thinks she isn’t looking.
 * Katherine Russo, often depicted as a “flanderized” version of Mimsie from her most popular work, the official YouTube webseries Mimsie 4ever. Like Mimsie, Russo will do anything to get “a moment in the sun”, hates her employers, and her boss, Ellen, keeps putting her in charge of major projects, often resulting in disaster.
 * Kathy Nelson and Greta Eleanor Edwards, Ellen Peck’s apprentices, depicted as the “Mini-Ellens”, who share, and exaggerate, all of Ellen’s traits, to the point of annoying Ellen herself.