Big Chuck Opens Up His Variety Show Vault: The Hollywood Palace!

The Hollywood Palace was a successful ABC-TV variety show that ran on Saturday nights from 1964 to 1970.

This was one of the first variety shows on TV to feature a different host each week. The Les Brown Orchestra was the house band for most of the show.  While most of the entertainers were more of the mainstream type, the Rolling Stones did make their very first American television appearance on the show on Jun 6, 1964.  In 1969 the Jackson Five made their very first TV appearance on the show also.

The Hollywood Palace had a mighty lead in for most of its run...the popular Lawrence Welk Show from 8:30 to 9:30.

Bing Crosby was the most frequent show host, doing the emcee duties 31 times, including the final show on February 7, 1970.  Other hosts included Ginger Rogers, Tony Bennett and Sammy Davis, Jr.

The show's set was pretty remarkable for an "early" variety show.  It started with the a thousand twinkling lights spelling out HOLLYWOOD PALACE.  The announcer dramatically identified the host and the stage set opened up and went up over the stage to reveal the star.

Take a look at it in action in this great clip from March 11, 1967.