On at least one memorable occasion, a staffer innocently repaired and oiled the chair, thus forcing the sound man to mimic the squeak orally. The chair was used from then on as the sound prop. Undaunted, Brown grabbed a nearby chair, sat in it and turned, causing a hair-raising squeak. The program did originally intend to use a door, but on its first use, the door did not creak. Himan Brown got the idea from a door in the basement that "squeaked like Hell." The door sound was actually made by a rusty desk chair.
The Creaking Door: The program's familiar and famed audio trademark was the eerie creaking door which opened and closed the broadcasts. She primly chided the host for his trademark dark humor and creepy manner. Beginning in 1945, Lipton Tea sponsored the series, pairing first Raymond and then McGrath with cheery commercial spokeswoman Mary Bennett (aka the "Tea Lady"), whose blithesome pitches for Lipton Tea contrasted sharply with the macabre themes of the stories. McGrath was a Broadway actor who turned to radio for a regular income. Host" (Berry Kroeger had substituted earlier for a total of four episodes). 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. Raymond's closing was an elongated "Pleasant dreeeeaams, hmmmmm?" His tongue-in-cheek style and ghoulish relish of his own tales became the standard for many such horror narrators to follow, from fellow radio hosts like Ernest Chappell (on Wyllis Cooper's later series, Quiet, Please) and Maurice Tarplin (on The Mysterious Traveler).
A spooky melodramatic organ score (played by Lew White) punctuated Raymond's many morbid jokes and playful puns. The early 1940s programs opened with Raymond Edward Johnson introducing himself as, "Your host, Raymond," in a mocking sardonic voice. The anthology series featured stories of mystery, terror and suspense, and its tongue-in-cheek introductions were in sharp contrast to shows like Suspense and The Whistler.
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