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Pamela McCoy (professionally credited as Pamela Hickey) is an American television writer and producer, best known as one half of the long-running animation writing partnership Hickey & McCoy alongside her husband Dennys McCoy.12 Together they contributed scripts to The Real Ghostbusters and Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters in the late 1980s,34 and have since accumulated over 1,500 produced credits across animation and live-action television worldwide.5
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Pamela Hickey grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where she met her future husband and writing partner Dennys McCoy during high school.5 They married in 1977,5 and their professional collaboration began around the same time, making Hickey & McCoy one of the longer-running spousal writing teams in American television animation.
Hickey and McCoy built their careers in animation writing during the 1980s boom in Saturday morning television. They became known both for their scripting work and as series troubleshooters and "script doctors," brought in to help shows in difficulty with story structure or tone. Writing together, they contributed to dozens of animated series across the United States, Europe, and beyond, with the duo having written for productions on every continent except Antarctica.
Among their broader animation credits are Beetlejuice: The Animated Series (late 1980s), RoboCop: The Series (1994, for which they also created and wrote the satirical in-universe "Commander Cash" animated segments),1 Butt-Ugly Martians (2001), Cosmic Quantum Ray (a Franco-German co-production on which they served as head writers and co-producers, writing supervised in English), Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch (which they developed for the Hub Network, acquired 2012),6 Insectibles, and Mighty Little Bheem (Netflix's first animated series from India, based on the Chhota Bheem franchise).7
Their most decorated credit is Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks (2003-2007), an animated Irish-American children's series on which they served as writers and producers. The show earned them a Daytime Emmy Award win for Outstanding Children's Animated Program in 2006, alongside four further Emmy nominations.8 Hickey & McCoy have also received four BAFTA nominations (winning three)9 and two Pulcinella Awards,5 making them among the more decorated writing teams in international children's television.
Hickey and McCoy wrote for The Real Ghostbusters from the show's second season onward. Episodes attributed to the pair include the Halloween special "Halloween II 1/2" (featuring the ghost Samhain),10 "Boo-Dunit,"3 "Don't Forget the Motor City,"10 "The Long, Long, Long, Etc. Goodbye,"10 and "Slimer Streak."10 They wrote for the series between 1987 and 1990 across multiple seasons.
The pair are credited on over ten episodes of the main series3 and were also deeply involved in the companion series Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters (from 1988 onward, when The Real Ghostbusters was reformatted by ABC and expanded into the Slimer! block). Hickey and McCoy pitched multiple stories for the Slimer! segments and, by their own account, leaned into classic Warner Bros. cartoon influences, inserting Tex Avery and Bob Clampett-style comedy into their Slimer! scripts.10
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
IMDb, "Pamela Hickey," accessed 2026-06-13. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0382655/ ↩ ↩2
IMDb, "Dennys McCoy," accessed 2026-06-13. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0382614/ ↩
IMDb, "The Real Ghostbusters: Full Cast & Crew," accessed 2026-06-13. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090506/fullcredits/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3
IMDb, "Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters: Full Cast & Crew," accessed 2026-06-13. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124257/fullcredits/ ↩
Animation Xpress, "Writing duo Pamela Hickey and Dennys McCoy join US branch of Green Gold," accessed 2026-06-13. https://www.animationxpress.com/latest-news/us-branch-of-green-gold-brings-on-board-writing-duo-pamela-hickey-and-dennys-mccoy-as-story-dept-heads/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
"Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina:_Secrets_of_a_Teenage_Witch ↩
"Mighty Little Bheem," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Little_Bheem ↩
IMDb, "Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks: Awards," accessed 2026-06-13. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381772/awards/ ↩
"Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakers!_The_Adventures_of_Piggley_Winks The article lists one confirmed BAFTA win for the series: British Academy Children's Award for Best International (2005). ↩
The Real Ghostbusters: Complete Collection (Time Life Home Entertainment, 2008). DVD box set; episode introduction and commentary segments recorded by Dennys McCoy and Pamela Hickey appear on Volumes 2, 3, and 5. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
