I read this but never heard anything else about it...“Mr. Ed” had a (very) early back-door pilot attempt. Wilbur & Ed et al visited a rustic holiday lodge run by William Bendix (a few years before he died).

I read this but never heard anything else about it...“Mr. Ed” had a (very) early back-door pilot attempt. Wilbur & Ed et al visited a rustic holiday lodge run by William Bendix (a few years before he died).
There were actually three different pilots attempted in Mister Ed. The one with William Bendix aired at the end of it's first season in 1961. Nancy Kulp and Colleen Gray also co-starred in this effort. In 1962 there was an attempt to spin off "Emmy Lou", based on the comic strip by Marty Links. Young Noanna Dix , Jeff Donnell, and George O' Hanlon starred. In 1964 "Moko, the Martian" was attempted. An early attempt to blend live action with animation, Richard Deacon would have been one of the voices as a pixie-ish Martian zapped himself in and out of stuffed shirts ears, completely changing their personalities. As none of the three pilots were ever picked up, the three shows became nothing more than odd episodes of Mister Ed which did not focus on the famous talking horse.