Before Wayne’s World. Before legions of raucous teenagers began transmitting pirated entertainment from their revamped bedroom "studios". Before MTV was airing its videos 24-hours a day, Mike Hillegas was bringing quality public access television to the Harrisburg area. And now he’s at it again.

For a nearly two-year stretch beginning in 1970, Hillegas and his pared down crew broadcast a live variety show, The Wild Thing, on Perfect TV, Dial 5, as a video disc jockey — acting as a forerunner to MTV’s veejays, if you will. For one hour, five days a week, Hillegas was bringing live entertainment to the masses, spinning the latest musical hits on records, performing skits, and bringing on some of the area’s most popular and unique residents as guests — all without the benefit of tape delay or a script. "Because of the way the format was, it was very off the cuff, very spontaneous, and there were no scripts — not back then," remembered Hillegas, "you came in, sat down and you did the hour show, then you went home."

But it wasn’t always that easy. After two years of working on and hosting the show on a daily basis, Hillegas and the crew decided to throw in the towel on The Wild Thing. Not because of a lack of popularity — according to Hillegas the show attracted a viewership of 10% of the market back then and seemingly caused a slight dent in some of the local morning news shows — but because they were exhausted and had other aspects of their lives to concentrate on. "I did 500 of them and I think everybody was just getting a little tired," said Hillegas, "it was me, alone, and maybe a guest once and a while, but we didn’t have a video tape recorder to record and edit everything together, we did it live, and it was two camera people and a director, and that was it and we all did it 5 nights a week." So, in late 1972, The Wild Thing came to a close.

In the nearly thirty years that have passed since the first airing of The Wild Thing, Hillegas has been a busy man. Always a fan of live theater and performing, he spent his time away from public access both in front of and behind the scenes of things. He taught television and radio production at the now closed Arts Magnet school, did weekend sports for Channel 21 (WHP-TV), formed a production company with his wife, Sharon, in 1982 — MiShar Productions — and, in 1990, packed up and headed for California. While there, he survived an earthquake or two, made some great contacts, and worked on a variety of projects, including the NBC television show Saved By The Bell.

Since his retirement three years ago, Hillegas continued to keep his pulse on the performing world, actively creating and producing dinner theater with his company, but his thoughts always drifted back toward his Wild Thing days. So, after a brainstorming session with some friends, he took a risk, dusted off his microphone, and decided to bring the show back to the airwaves. "We were talking to a lot of our friends or after people would come through the line at the dinner theater and they’d say, ‘I remember your TV show,’ — and that’s going back 30 some years," Hillegas said, "so we all got together one night and we were just talking and we said, ‘you know, we should do this again, we should bring this show back and see what happens." And so they did.

After shooting a thirty-minute pilot in November, Hillegas and company — including his wife as producer — took the updated version to the City of Harrisburg’s press secretary Randy King, who gave them access on cable, where the show began airing in January. Now totaling 26, the cast and crew of the newly revised The Wild Thing — most of whom are in the mid to late twenties and thirties and who didn’t have the opportunity to see the original airings, although Hillegas has shown them footage of the one episode they have on tape —are running a tight ship. Each month, they spend time filming the shows at their new studio in New Cumberland, with two airing per month — one show running for one week and one show running for two, with a week off in between.

And, according to Hillegas, although much has changed in the world of television since The Wild Thing first aired, the show itself has fundamentally stayed the same — with guests, skits — performed by the show’s cast, ‘The Thingamabobs’ — and, of course, music — only this time, instead of records, the music is provided by a house band. "It’s much like it was," he said, adding, "it is a really nice local quality production …we’re still just a local show, there’s a need for [cable] access, no one here’s trying to say we’re going to be another David Letterman, that’s not the purpose, the purpose is: local show, have a good time, exemplify the area, bring in local guests. There’s a lot of local talented people in this area — I don’t think the general populus knows just how many talented people are in Central Pennsylvania."

And although there is the added technology of being ‘live’ on tape and the benefit of having a larger source of writers, Hillegas prides himself on the fact that the actual production aspects of his show has stayed very much the same, as well — which means relying very little on the added safety net of using scripts or numerous takes. "The improv, the spontaneity makes it work so well, makes it click so well, because, to me, scripts just don’t work, not for this kind of show, anyhow … maybe for some of the bigger shows, where they have 10 to 15 writers ... but I don’t do that, we just have a good time with the audience at home and the audience in the theater."

Always attracted to comedy, Hillegas finds great enjoyment in the skits he and The Thingamabobs perform. Taped and edited before show time, the Saturday Night Live-like skits "poke fun at different people in the area" spoofing news events on a local, regional, and national scale. "I’ve always been attracted to that kind of thing and always been very successful at it," Hillegas said, laughing, "we do really just to the edge stuff, funny stuff."

A great cast, a great crew, great material — what else would a show like The Wild Thing need? A stable time slot. While the freedom of cable access programming can most definitely be a positive, one of its major drawbacks is lack of consistent programming times. Hillegas and The Wild Thing face the challenge of overcoming time slots that may air the show at different times on different days — a factor that currently restricts them from promoting television listings in forums such as TV Guide or Television Host.

"I would love to get a listing, but I don’t know how to go about that because what we really have to do is stabilize things with the City to make sure it’s going to stay on at this time," said Hillegas. And while the problem is not retaining an audience — as Hillegas said the show has received nothing but praise since its debut — it is in merely attracting one that may be unaware that such a program even exists. "The problem we have now is that people don’t know when it’s on," said Hillegas, adding that, even without such a listing, he is quite pleased with the reaction the show has been receiving, "It’s not listed, but for the amount of viewing we’re getting and the number of people on the show who are recognized — it’s unbelievable."

So, what does Hillegas predict for the future of The Wild Thing? Does he envision himself hosting the show for another two years … another ten years … another thirty years? While all of that remains to be seen, he is sure of one thing — he’s come back to the job that makes him happy, and he’s having just as much fun as he did the first time around. "I love doing this," he said, smiling, "When I retired three years ago, I took a gamble, we left the security and we said, ‘let’s try this and see what happens’ and now we’re working harder than we were a few years ago. But that’s just the price to pay for self-employment and doing what you want to do — and that’s exactly what I’m doing."

The Wild Thing can be found airing on the cable access channel every Monday from 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. and on weekends at 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.