Custom getChildHtml Block After Closing HTML Tag

Question

This may be a stupid question. Is it possible to call a custom block after the closing HTML tag in my templates? Here's what I've got so far, but the block is not included/rendered and there's nothing in the error logs.

File: app/design/frontend/default/theme/layout/local.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<layout>
    <default>
        ...
        <reference name="custom_block">
            <block type="core/template" name="custom_block" as="custom_block" template="page/html/custom_block.phtml" />
        </reference>
        ...
    </default>
</layout>

File: app/design/frontend/default/theme/template/page/html/custom_block.phtml

<!-- boo! -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" />

And lastly, I call the block in the layout file(s) like so:

File: app/design/frontend/default/theme/template/page/1column.phtml

    ...
    </div>
    <?php echo $this->getAbsoluteFooter() ?>
</body>
</html>
<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('custom_block') ?>

Have I got the scope of getChildHtml() wrong? I have cleared the cache manually a hundred times and re-indexed the site as much. Thanks for taking a look.

Answer 1

Your layout xml should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<layout>
    <default>
        <reference name="root">
            <block type="core/template" name="custom_block" as="custom_block" template="page/html/custom_block.phtml" />
        </reference>
    </default>
</layout>

But please don't output anything after </html>. It's wrong.