FROM STEVE MARTIN ROUTINE TO SITCOM : CLASSY BOW FOR ‘HEAD OF CLASS’ ACTOR

As a teen-ager, Dan Frischman broke into show business by plagiarizing Steve Martin. Frischman stood on an auditorium stage at his North Jersey High School talent show and asked a packed house of friends and parents how many of them had heard of the soon-to-be-famous comedian. Only one person clapped--back then Martin’s fame had yet to find that Jersey exit--so Frischman mimicked the very same routine he’d seen Martin perform on Johnny Carson’s show the night before. The audience went crazy, and Frischman knew on the spot what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Today, Frischman spends most of his time on a slick Hollywood sound stage as Arvid, one of teacher Howard Hesseman’s 10 smart kids on ABC’s “Head of the Class” (ABC, Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m.).

But just last spring, he was diligently performing a one-man show for about 10 people each Sunday afternoon at a three-row theater in Beverly Hills. In his monologues, Frischman joked equally about his problems with women and his troubles landing even bit parts on television comedies.

“I called my father up for some encouragement,” Frischman said. “He told me, ‘You know what you should do, Dan. You should get a series.’ ” Again Frischman had his audience laughing. And a few weeks later he had his series.

The show resurrects the “Welcome Back, Kotter” classroom sitcom--complete with lovable, do-gooding teacher, a blundering principal and a bevy of colorful rejects who somehow end up at school every day. But where “Kotter” portrayed the in-crowd as a bunch of tottering idiots, the kids in “Head of the Class” are all academic prodigies. The not too subtle message of this show is that you can be smart and still be cool.

Well, almost cool. Frischman’s Arvid is the one true nerd in an ensemble of nerds--brilliantly inept in thick glasses, slide rule pocket protector and an endless array of goofy expressions. Arvid is the mathematical wizard the jocks abuse in the halls, the scientific wonder everyone expects will win a Nobel Prize before his 25th birthday. But as played by Frischman, Arvid is usually more concerned with getting a date for the school dance than with any of Einstein’s theories.

Frischman says that most of the young actors on the series now show up to work in slick new cars. And though he has toyed with the idea of buying a ’59 Mercedes, he’s mostly interested in making up for all the dating he missed out on in high school and college.

“The first thing that happened after being on television is that I got a call from every ex-girlfriend I ever had,” he says. “I once went out with a girl who actually seemed to like me, but all she really wanted to do was sell me a bunch of Amway products. I didn’t even catch on. I guess you can be too nice a guy.”

Frischman’s real-life romantic mishaps feed his comedy, and his comedy keeps viewers smiling every time Arvid’s untapped hormones send him gyrating into another kooky mating dance.

While his fellow young actors on “Head of the Class” plod through each show, working hard to express emotion and hit the timing on their jokes, Arvid skips, dances and leaps in the air like a rock star impersonating a nerd or a nerd who doesn’t even realize he’s being funny.

Talking to Frischman is like talking to Dial-a-Joke. For a young comedian so full of one-liners, he is quite shy and unassuming. His nerdy clothes and glasses locked away in a closet back at the Burbank Studios, Frischman spikes his short, dark hair straight up with styling mousse and breakfasts on oatmeal and scrambled eggs.

Though he can contort his face into an impression of the nerdiest nerd, Frischman doesn’t look like a man who would be scorned by thousands of women. He’s no Bruce Willis, but he isn’t the kind of guy you’d be afraid to fix up with your sister either.

“Yeah, women recognize me in the supermarket now,” Frischman says, “but I get recognized more for the one ‘Facts of Life’ episode I did. I played Carl, the pizza delivery boy, and it took an hour and a half in make-up to get my acne just right. The whole point of the story was that nobody liked me because I was so ugly.”

Frischman has learned how to play the Hollywood game. He flirts with casting directors’ secretaries, who, during leaner times, often got him auditions and bit parts. Frischman has appeared on several television shows, including “St. Elsewhere,” “Alice,” “Webster” and even did a turn as a singing telegram dressed as a bug on “The Paper Chase.”

He has his own star on the facade on the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard, a major part on a prime-time series, glossy pictures in Teen magazine, and, like most young actors, he hopes to some day write, direct and star in his own films. But Frischman insists that he is still a struggling actor.

“Sure it was exciting to get this job. It was what I was working for. And Arvid is a real character. He doesn’t know his barriers yet, and I can push him and experiment. But television is a writer’s medium. All our jokes are written for us. It’s much more satisfying to do my own material. Besides, I’m still looking for this fast Hollywood life style everyone’s always talking about. Maybe I have to do more to find all the fast women and fast cars.”

Even if his hopes for an active love life remain rather bleak, Frischman is almost irreverently optimistic about his acting career. For his third and final audition for Arvid in front of the network bosses, Frischman walked into a room filled with about 40 unhappy, darkened faces. The biggest break in his career depended on his ability to make them laugh. Many young actors would have been terrified. But not Dan Frischman.

“I realized that they were dying for me to be good,” Frischman says. “They needed somebody good. I simply enjoyed myself. And they all clapped when I was through.”

Frischman’s one real acting dream is to star as Beetle in a musical movie adaptation of the comic strip “Beetle Bailey.” He actually wrote to Mort Walker, Bailey’s creator, proposing the idea and asking for a reaction. A few weeks later, Frischman received a typed letter thanking him “for his interest in Beetle and his friends.” Now if he could only find Walker’s secretary. . . .