When I came back to it, we amicably separated from Warner Bros. I just picked up where I left off, trying to write the rest of this record. It took awhile to get out.

More than anything, I want to keep working with people of talent like Craig Gillespie, Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood. But there's also those long-dreamt-of moments: I'd love to host 'Saturday Night Live,' I'd love to do a Penguin stand-alone movie at Warner Bros., I'd love to do a Teddy Roosevelt biopic.

Warner Bros. was a great label to be affiliated with. It's the best label out there, and the fact that I was with them for 20 years was just an honor.

'Batman Beyond' started because we were tossed a curve, because the higher ups at Warner Bros. wanted a different take on him.

When I was a teenager, the biggest heartthrob was Tab Hunter. He was in every movie out of Warner Bros. until he was exposed as gay, and his career faded. That was an object lesson. I knew I must protect my sexual orientation.

I got a great kick being in the Warner Bros. studios - that was really cool. I kept singing the 'Looney Tunes' theme song all day. I'm sure they haven't heard that one before.

I started touring a little bit in 1973 in support of a record I made for an independent label. In 1975, when I signed with Warner Bros., where I remained happily ensconced for the next 24 years, my touring activity increased considerably.

You see a Clint Eastwood movie, and you might not know if it's from Universal or Warner Bros. or another studio. He has affiliations with so many studios now, but there was a time when you'd just look at a movie and think, 'Oh, that's a Warner Bros. film.'

Warner Bros. has talked about going out with low-cost DVDs simultaneously in China because piracy is so huge there. It will be a while before bigger movies go out in all formats; in five years, everything will.

When I went to Warner Bros., there was a woman named Bonnie Lee who was an executive who helped me to get to 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure.'

I'm so lucky that 'The Vampire Diaries' happened. I'm so lucky that Warner Bros. pays me money. You have no idea. I should be on a fishing boat with my dad.

I wanted to be the first female, young teenager producer, and it didn't happen. And when it finally did happen, I was shelved because I was signed to Warner Bros.

'Smoke On The Water' was ignored by everybody to begin with. We only did it in the shows because it was a filler track from 'Machine Head.' But then, one radio station picked up on it, and Warner Bros. edited it down to about three and a half minutes. It then started getting played by lots of different radio stations.

It's interesting: John Calley at Warner Bros. helped me put 'Alice' together. It was very unusual back then for a studio to support an actress the way he backed and supported me. He even asked me if I wanted to direct the film, which I didn't feel prepared to at that point.

We make sure we have total artistic control with our albums. We were working with Interscope Records, and they had a hard time with us having all the control. So when we signed with Warner Bros., we told them we would be working hands-on with our producer, and they were cool with it.

I worked at Warner Bros. for a while. I was the head of the minority talent casting. It was like pre-Spike Lee and post-blaxploitation era.

Think about trailers you see in theaters. If you're seeing a Warner Bros film, the studio might have three of the five trailers. So having a hit helps you create the next hit.

We've played producers almost our entire lives in everything else we've created. But when working on a feature and even dealing with something like Warner Bros. or another production company, or other details that you can worry about - we definitely learned a lot.

I was really disappointed that Warner Bros. didn't think highly enough of my film or my filmmaking to ask me to make the new Superman.

I have felt for the last 10 years I have had this battle; I've been fighting so hard to have an education. It's been this uphill struggle. I was Warner Bros' pain in the butt. I was their scheduling conflict. I was the one who made life difficult.