You must ground the sparkplug to the (metal) head / cylinder area to see a spark . If the spark is not blue and rather bright you may have a plug wire or coil weakening .

ewalk,
thx for taking the time to help me out. ill try checking the spark that way. i also read your reply to the recent weed eater carb post and will use your advice on my own small engine issue.
rid

rid: No Problem let us know how it goes . Hopefully the coil is not faulty . Sometimes also you may have a on/off switch causing the problem , if the plug does not show a bright blue spark try disconnecting the ignition switch (bypass) then try for spark .

ok. will do. thx!

Lot of possibilities here but one thing that is endemic with the small 2-cycles is fuel starvation. Prime it, set the choke, then figure out a way to block the air intake while you pull the starter. This will usually get one going. It could be as simple as gum/dirt blocking the fuel pickup. Because the mix in the tank is dark, you usually don't see the fuel pickup or any crud in the tank. Empty it and take a look. Next, the mixture adjustment screws may have turned or been turned. Open them both up about one turn and see what happens. 2-cycles love fuel, and most of them will run a lot 'wetter' than a 4-cycle, so you may have to play around with the mixtures to get it to start, run cold and take the throttle when hot.
Or it could be the coil or switch as ewalk said. Heck, it could be both!