My mom taught me how to make pancakes. You get the skillet hot enough for a drop of water to dance on the pan. She preferred to use cast iron, and probably with cast iron you don't need butter, oil or whatever. That is if you are maintaining the cast iron in the old school way, which is NO SOAP EVER in the pan and only rinse and wipe. In these conditions the cast iron will be no stick. You can also oil the pan and cook it at 200 degrees for an hour in the oven, but I digress.

If you don't have cast iron, any pan using a light wipe of butter (I will put butter on a paper towel and wipe the pan real good for each set of pancakes. Wait until the bubbles pop on the top side of the pancake...then you know its good to flip. That is about it.