The Desilu Playhouse with special guest star William Bendix, Martin Balsam and Jesse White (1958)

Fireside Theater with special guest star William Bendix (1955)

The Schlitz Playhouse with special guest stars William Schallert and William Bendix (1956)

The Steve Allen Show with guest Jack Kerouac and William Bendix (1959)

The Steve Allen Show with guests William Bendix, Frankie Laine and Jack Kerouac (1959)

Burke's Law with special guest stars William Bendix, Shelley Berman and Louis Nye (1963)

Classic Television Showbiz's Late Late Show: Calcutta (1947)

Overland Trail (1960)

What's My Line with guest panelist William Bendix and mystery guest Jack Paar (1960)

Life of Reily (1953)

The Life of Riley with special guest stars Sterling Holloway and Nancy Kulp (1955)

What's My Line with mystery guest William Bendix (1953)

The Desilu Playhouse (1958)

The Life of Riley starring Jackie Gleason (1949)

This is a fascinating and awful sitcom. There have been a lot of things on the site recently that could be categorized as such, and the steady stream isn't about to slow down any time soon. Anyway, in 1949 William Bendix was busy making movies for Universal and wasn't able to appear in the initial television version of his popular radio series. Instead the producers went with some B-movie bum named Jackie Gleason - making his television debut. Three years after this failed run, a revamped television version of The Life of Riley came to the airwaves with Bendix back in the starring role. Gleason of course was busy on a different TV series.