comedians, musicians, specialty acts by flying performers into Los Angeles via Burbank Airport for appearances on The Hollywood Palace. Exposure of the Knickerbocker Hotel's electric sign atop the rear building, behind the Palace Theater, was a unique advertisement shown in every parking lot act. Like The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS, all of the episodes of The Hollywood Palace (save its final episode in 1970) were taped before a live audience; a laugh and applause track was also used for "sweetening" purposes. During the 1967 season, studies were made to convert the stage, which would have a swimming pool beneath a sliding stage floor that would cover the pool, with a third ice rink floor that could slide atop the stage floor. Storing these sliding floors required owning the property behind the theater building. The Knickerbocker Hotel was directly behind the building, but ABC could not purchase the hotel property from the Methodist Church, which had converted the hotel into a residential retirement facility. Moving the show to a Culver City soundstage was considered, but scuttled because of the expense. Vanoff later used this format concept for the 1980 NBC variety series The Big Show, using a soundstage on the Sunset Gower Studios lot, which included a three-ring stage, ice rink, swimming pool for aquatic staging, and an audience area. For most of its television run, with a lead-in of The Lawrence Welk Show at 8:30 pm, at 9:30, The Hollywood Palace enjoyed consistently respectable ratings, although it never made the top 30 programs. By the start of the 1969-1970 season (its seventh), the ratings had slipped, and ABC canceled the series in February 1970. Bing Crosby hosted the final episode, sans audience, which consisted of clips from previous shows. Compilation show On December 16, 2004, a television special titled Christmas at the Hollywood Palace was broadcast on PBS. It included performances by Crosby and 15 clips from past Christmas shows of the series. It also included interviews with Bing's wife Kathryn Crosby, Bing's children Harry and Mary Crosby, and Hollywood Palace producer Bill Harbach. AwardsThe Hollywood Palace'' won one Emmy out of eight nominations, for James Trittipo for art direction in 1966. The same year, it was nominated for a variety series, arranging (Joe Lipman), costume design (Ed Smith), and conducting (Mitchell Ayres). Ayres received another Emmy nomination for his work on the series in 1968, when two more