Hello Americans
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| Genre | Docudrama |
|---|---|
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Home station | CBS |
| Hosted by | Orson Welles |
| Starring | Orson Welles Mercury Players |
| Written by | Orson Welles John Tucker Battle Robert Meltzer Richard Brooks Milton Geiger others |
| Directed by | Orson Welles |
| Produced by | Orson Welles |
| Original release | November 15, 1942 – January 31, 1943 |
| No. of series | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 12 |
Hello Americans (1942–43) is a CBS Radio series produced, directed and hosted by Orson Welles. Created to promote inter-American understanding and friendship during World War II, the series aired Sundays at 8 p.m. ET beginning November 15, 1942. Its last broadcast was January 31, 1943. Sponsored by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, the drama series featured many of the actors from Welles's Mercury Theatre repertory ensemble.
Hello Americans was produced concurrently with Welles's other CBS series, Ceiling Unlimited, a salute to the aviation industry, and his work was considered a significant contribution to the war effort.
Orson Welles produced Hello Americans under the auspices of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1941 "to provide for the development of commercial and cultural relations between the American Republics and thereby increasing the solidarity of this hemisphere and furthering the spirit of cooperation between the Americas in the interest of hemisphere defense."
"The best good-will propaganda is to sell South America to North America," Welles wrote coordinator Nelson Rockefeller. Welles drew upon the research amassed earlier in 1942 for It's All True, the film project he had embarked upon also at the request of Rockefeller, who was a major RKO Pictures stockholder and Welles admirer as well as Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. It was hoped that the dramatizations would counteract German and Italian propaganda and build solidarity among American republics in the hemisphere.
"It belongs to a period when hemispheric unity was a crucial matter and many programs were being devoted to the common heritage of the Americas," broadcasting historian Erik Barnouw wrote of a contemporaneous project Welles created — a radio play called Admiral of the Ocean Sea, broadcast on Cavalcade of America October 12, 1942:
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