[2] In 1930, the first title was published in Simon & Schuster's "Inner Sanctum" mystery series: I Am Jonathan Scrivener by Claude Houghton.

[4] On January 7, 1941, the Inner Sanctum radio program premiered,[5] the name licensed by Simon & Schuster on condition that at the end of each broadcast the announcer would promote the latest book title published in the series.

His tongue-in-cheek style and ghoulish relish of his own tales became the standard for many such horror narrators to follow, such as Maurice Tarplin (on The Mysterious Traveler).

[7] When Johnson left the series in May 1945 to serve in the Army, he was replaced by Paul McGrath, who did not keep the "Raymond" name and was known only as "Your Host" or "Mr.

[citation needed] The program's familiar and famed audio trademark was the eerie creaking door which opened and closed the broadcasts.

On at least one memorable occasion, a staffer innocently repaired and oiled the chair, thus forcing the sound man to mimic the squeak orally.

[citation needed] Other established film stars who appeared on the program in the early years included Bela Lugosi, Mary Astor, Helen Hayes, Peter Lorre, Paul Lukas, Claude Rains, Frank Sinatra, and Orson Welles.

These included Santos Ortega, Larry Haines, Ted Osborne, Luis van Rooten, Stefan Schnabel, Ralph Bell, Mercedes McCambridge, Berry Kroeger, Arnold Moss, Leon Janney, Myron McCormick, and Mason Adams.

Players like Richard Widmark, Everett Sloane, Burgess Meredith, Agnes Moorehead, Ken Lynch, and Anne Seymour also found fame or notability in film or television.

[7] In June 1943, Universal purchased the screen rights to the series from Simon and Schuster, Inc.[10][11] The Inner Sanctum Mysteries feature a "stream of consciousness" voiceover which Edward Dein stated he incorporated into his script at Lon Chaney Jr.'s insistence.

[16] The authors of the book Universal Horrors declared the series "feeble melodramas with little to recommend them beyond their camp qualities and the morose spectacle of seeing a badly miscast Chaney struggle his way through acting assignments that were painfully beyond his depth.

[18] In the 1970s, with his CBS Radio Mystery Theater series, Himan Brown recycled both the creaking door opening and, to a lesser extent, the manner of Raymond.

When the series was rebroadcast during the late 1990s, Brown himself rerecorded the host segments and mimicked Raymond's "Pleasant dreeeeaaams, hmmmmm?"

In the Three Stooges short The Ghost Talks, a creaking door prompts Shemp to parody the opening narration of the program, naming it "The Outer Sanctorum."

The announcer's jokey pun in this case concerned an author friend, specializing in best-sellers, who "tried to bury [him] in one, because all the very best sellers (cellars) have corpses in them."

The popular British 60s radio comedy Round The Horne had occasional sketches that were influenced by the style of the show.

Regular cast member Hugh Paddick would introduce the "scary" sketch with the words "Inner Sanctum-um-um-um-um-um..." – pretending to echo!