As I walked along Ventura Boulevard that evening, I thought how it never occurred to me that once I was on staff I would not only be paid to story edit other writers’ script for a series, but I’d be encouraged to write episodes myself.

That wasn’t how the industry usually worked. Years later, when Robby London came on as VP, Creative Affairs, he bristled at staff writers being paid to write episodes. He said while he was at Filmation, writing scripts pro bono was expected.

It made sense that if you were a paid staff writer, scriptwriting was a part of the job. Even if you wrote scripts while you were home, off the clock, to be paid a script fee on top of one’s salary, I felt, would be like double dipping.

Jean and Andy disagreed. Their policy was that if you wrote a script while on staff as a story editor you would be paid for it. Not only that, you would be well paid for it. Writing scripts while you were physically in the studio, rather than after work, at home, was a gray area. But while it wasn’t overtly condoned, as long as you were current on your work, everyone looked the other way if you were writing a script while in the office.

Still, I decided to keep the small rules. So I started working on my Care Bears treatments when I got home that night.