ACTOR 'Skippy' stays on right track

The 'Family Ties' neighbor has continued his career.
LAS VEGAS SUN
We've all heard the pitiful tales of former child stars whose personal lives took tragic turns after the cameras stopped rolling on their hit TV series.
This is not one of those stories.
To hear Marc Price tell it, he had only two options after his seven-year stint playing geeky neighbor Skippy on the '80s sitcom "Family Ties."
"I could have been the person who runs from it and wants to avoid it and tries to pretend it didn't happen," he says, "or I could do what I did, which is embrace it and just enjoy it and use it as a tool to help introduce people to Marc Price."
Embrace it, he did.
Some 15 years after the hit NBC sitcom ended its run, the actor, a longtime standup comic, often introduces himself to people as Marc "Skippy" Price.
"It's kind of become my nickname," he explained. "It's what my family calls me; it's what my friends call me."
Stint on 'Ties'
You won't catch Price, 36, biting the hand that fed him well during his late teens and early 20s. He recalls his "Family Ties" years as "a tremendous experience for me. It's almost funny talking about it still because it's been so long, but obviously it's that important in my life."
For starters, the show turned him into an international celebrity. Price says he was "treated like a Beatle" while visiting Australia and other locales during the sitcom's heyday.
Price, the son of late Borscht Belt comedian Al Bernie, first took the standup stage alongside his father when he was just a lad. He flew solo during his early teens with an appearance on "The Merv Griffin Show" before pursuing an acting career. At age 14, he landed the role of Skippy.
Because his was not a main character on "Family Ties," Price had fewer lines to learn than, say, star Michael J. Fox. Often, "I would literally sit in the director's booth and watch how the show was put together" behind the scenes. "I had time to watch the process and learn from it ... and I took advantage of that and I really studied."
He discovered that acting "wasn't enough" for him. "I really needed to be a part of the creation of the show."
After "Family Ties" ended its run in 1989, Price started his own production company. He says he worked on a couple of projects for the Walt Disney Company, which included hosting the game show "Teen Win, Lose or Draw" from 1989 through '92.
More recently, he joined forces with Bud Friedman, founder of The Improv club chain, on another production company called Bud Friedman Digital. The outfit produced, among other projects, 65 episodes of the game show "National Lampoon's Funny Money," which aired from 2002 through 2003 on Game Show Network; and "Comics Unleashed," a special hosted by Richard Jeni for the cable channel Animal Planet.
Reality series
Separate from Bud Friedman Digital, Price struck out on his own to create and produce the 2002 reality series "Star Dates," which aired on cable's E! channel. He paired several of his "D-list celebrity friends" -- including Dustin Diamond, best known as Screech from "Saved By the Bell"; Kim Fields of "The Facts of Life" fame; and Butch Patrick of "The Munsters" -- with non-celebs for wacky blind dates.
"People complain about all the reality shows, but I look at it as a brave new frontier where anything goes," Price says.
While the nickname still draws some crowds, he knows he won't be able to rest on his Skippy laurels forever.
"It's not the lure it once was, but that just gives me a reason to try to find a new lure, a new reason that people respect me and want to see me," Price says. "It's inspirational, believe it or not. I wake up every morning and go, 'OK, how am I gonna make things happen today?'"