McLean was running a woman's shoe shop in Double Bay, Sydney when he read an article about a TV series being made in Australia, Riptide (1969). He sent them a couple of stories which the show liked and he taught himself how to adapt them into scripts. He wrote some episodes of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and did sketches for The Mavis Bramston Show. He came much in demand in the early 70s, writing a number of shows for Crawford Productions.
