[1] At the end of Welles's 13-episode contract (November 9, 1942 – February 1, 1943), Ceiling Unlimited was hosted by a variety of personalities including Charles Boyer, Joe E. Brown, Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Alan Ladd, William Powell, Basil Rathbone, Edward G. Robinson and writer James Hilton.

Retitled America — Ceiling Unlimited, the program featured vocalists Nan Wynn and Constance Moore, and music by Wilbur Hatch.

"[3]: 150  Within weeks he began to plan two CBS radio dramas to be broadcast on consecutive nights: Ceiling Unlimited, and Hello Americans, a docudrama to promote inter-American understanding and friendship during World War II.

[5] "Its purpose, one of simple propaganda, was to boost morale within the industry in order to underpin the vast increase in productivity the war demanded," wrote Welles biographer Simon Callow.

[6]: 157 "Ceiling Unlimited accomplished news reportage, entertainment and education while its ever changing format kept the listener interested in the material presented," wrote biographer Bret Wood.

For his part, Welles acquainted himself with the Flying Fortress and other aircraft at the Lockheed-Vega plants in California, wrote biographer Frank Brady: "Sporting an employee's identification badge and wearing a silver-colored hard hat, he poked his nose into machinery, ate box lunches with executives, and talked to the workers on the assembly lines.

[4]: 351–352  They had worked together once before; Welles performed a nuanced drama about Benito Juárez — Juarez: Thunder from the Hills, a verse play written by Miller — before a live audience on the September 28, 1942, broadcast of Cavalcade of America.

"[5] Welles cast many of his Mercury Theatre company of actors, including Ray Collins, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead and Everett Sloane.

"Fifteen minutes was hardly enough time to accomplish the different goals set forth, but he did his best to cover the spectrum of emotions and topics, sometimes to great effect but more often with campy results.

"[7]: 124 Welles left Ceiling Unlimited at the end of his 13-episode contract, concluding the broadcast on February 1, 1943, with a statement: "For a while, the Mercury Theatre is going off the air.

[14] As part of the January 25, 1943, episode of Ceiling Unlimited, Welles presented a John Steinbeck short story written specifically for broadcast.

[19][20] Virtually forgotten, the story was published in November 2014, after a transcript of the broadcast was found in the archives of the University of Texas at Austin by Andrew Gulli, managing editor of The Strand Magazine.

[26]: 65  John Houseman, Welles's erstwhile partner in the Mercury Theatre, was chief of radio programming for the Overseas Branch of the OWI and ran the Voice of America from February 1942 through June 1943.

[a] "War Workers" is one of four of Welles's wartime radio broadcasts included as supplementary material in the Kino Classics restoration of The Stranger (1946), released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in October 2013.

[32] Beginning Sunday, August 8, 1943, Joseph Cotten hosted the 30-minute variety series still sponsored by Lockheed and Vega but now titled America — Ceiling Unlimited.