"Wild Thing" is a single by American rapper Tone Lōc from his 1989 album Lōc-ed After Dark. The title is a reference to the phrase "doin' the wild thing," a euphemism for sex, unlike The Troggs' hit song, "Wild Thing" (later covered by Jimi Hendrix), in which the "wild thing" was a girl. According to producer Mario Caldato, Jr., who engineered and mixed the song, producer Matt Dike was inspired by an utterance of "wild thing" in Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It, and asked Young MC to write the lyrics.

Tone Lōc's song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1989, only behind "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul, and it spawned at least two parodies (by "Weird Al" Yankovic, called "Isle Thing", about Gilligan's Island and was Yankovic's first rap parody, and by Christian band ApologetiX, called "Child King"). It eventually sold over two million copies. It also peaked at number 21 on the UK Singles Chart.

The song uses an uncredited sample of Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin'". Van Halen's management at the time asked for a flat fee (credited in some reports to be US$5,000) as payment to have the song sampled by Tone Lōc. Apparently, this decision was taken without consulting the band's original members (credited as co-authors of the song), who in turn did not expect "Wild Thing" to become the major hit it became. A subsequent civil lawsuit was settled out of court, with the band receiving US$180,000 as settlement payment. Alex Van Halen has gone on record saying that he had heard the song over the radio halfway and didn't realize it had been sampled until he recognized his (by now famous) tom-tom break at least a few times. Concerning the settlement, he said: "Well, at least we got something. Tone Lōc and his people made millions out of it..."

...
Wikipedia