Hollywood produced many mystery movies in the 1940s, and people began to host impromptu or scripted murder mystery dinners in their own homes.
The first theater in the round in the United States opened in Dallas in 1947. Actors would have to come on and off stage with all their props and perform and even mingle within the center of a rectangle formed by the rows of seats around the central stage.
Dinner theaters became increasingly popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Scripts needed to be fresh and original to attract diners to come and see a new play at the same time.
Mystery series became extremely popular on radio in the 1940s and '50s and throughout the 1970s and '80s.
The love of mysteries and need for innovative plays in a theater in the round and dinner theater setting led to the dawning of murder mystery theater and murder mystery dinner theater in the 1980s. The Mystery Café in Canton, Massachusetts, claims to be the oldest murder mystery theater in the United States, launched in early 1987.