BANGOR – When Dan Cashman aired the first edition of “The Nite Show” on April 12, 1997 – becoming the youngest ever host of a local talk show in Bangor – he never imagined he’d still be at it five years later.

“I really didn’t think it would make it one year,” Cashman admitted in a recent interview.

In the old days, he recalled, he had to sell ads to pay for his airtime. The show lacked a permanent home, taping in a variety of venues ranging from the Old Town Public Library and Elks Lodge to the Old Town Community Center and the Knights of Columbus Hall in Old Town, where the bulk of the old shows took place.

A 19-year-old University of Maine freshman at the time, Cashman enlisted a cadre of friends and family to help with everything from production to setting up chairs for the studio audience.

“A lot of us were in school,” he said during a recent interview. “We had summers off. It was very, very easy then. We all have jobs now.”

For a while, the show’s future looked shaky. Cashman took a year and a half off to finish college. “I wasn’t sure where we’d do the show again and if we’d do the show again,” Cashman acknowledged.

A year ago this month, however, the show re-emerged on Bangor channel 30.

“The Nite Show,” Greater Bangor’s only homegrown television talk show, marked its five-year milestone last weekend with an anniversary special starring Tim Throckmorton, broadcast sports director at WABI (Channel 5) in Bangor.

Despite the passage of five years, the show has maintained its unique local angle. The guests and the musicians could live in the house next door. The jokes in Cashman’s monologue still poke fun at state and local figures in politics, sports and other topics of regional interest.

The host’s parents, Jack and Betty Cashman of Old Town, still pitch in with the writing and his old Old Town High School buddy Luke Bouchard is still with the show, now serving as its producer. Karel and Terry Lidral and their son, Arthur “Skins” Lidral, also known as the Lidral Trio, continue to be the show’s house band.

Under the heading of things that changed is the fact that all shows are now taped at the WVII-TV news studios at Target Industrial Circle and that lining up advertising now is someone else’s concern.

In addition, Cashman’s all grown up now. He’s lost his baby fat, completed an internship with Don Imus (the radio shock jock host of “Imus in the Morning”) and graduated from the University of Maine. He now holds a full-time position as program director for Z-107, a Top 40 station that broadcasts from Brewer.

In the meantime, the show continues to acquire polish. Karel Lidral has written an original theme song. The show now has its own Web site and a “tasteful late-night logo.” Much of the technical burden has been picked up by the WVII production crew.

“They’ve added a whole new dimension of professionalism while we still have our amateurish edge,” Cashman said. He said the technical experts have helped streamline the taping process.

Perhaps key to it all, however, is that Cashman’s still having fun with the show.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “I like to meet people and see what makes them tick – and make them laugh.”

Does Cashman see himself at the helm of “The Nite Show” five more years from now?

“I have no idea,” Cashman said. “Basically I have two jobs that I love doing. Most people are lucky to just have one.”

“I’m very lucky to be in radio,” he added. “I love music. I love the people that I work with. [I also] like the excitement of being in and working in a TV studio – seeing what goes on. And that’s a great thing to witness.”

“The Nite Show” airs at 10:30 p.m. Saturdays on WCKD Bangor channel 30 or on Adelphia cable company’s channel 10, which covers much of the Greater Bangor area. More information on “The Nite Show” is available from the show’s Web site at www.niteshow.com.