Scrubs Blackface Episodes Removed from Hulu at Creator’s Request

Scrubs has some literal scrubbing to do. As Variety reports, show creator Bill Lawrence and ABC themselves are pulling multiple episodes featuring characters in blackface from Hulu.

There are three episodes of Scrubs in total with various characters in blackface: “My Fifteen Seconds” (season 3, episode 7), “My Jiggly Ball” (season 5, episode 4), and “My Chopped Liver” (season 5, episode 17). In one of them, Zach Braff, who plays the show’s lead character, wears blackface at a party. In another, Sarah Chalke’s character is in blackface during a dream sequence.

Lawrence confirmed that Scrubs episodes were being removed after being tagged in a tweet about 30 Rock taking down its own blackface episodes from streaming networks and syndication. When asked if Scrubs could do the same, Lawrence responded, “Agreed. Already in the works.”

Scrubs and 30 Rock are the latest TV shows to remove episodes due to their use of blackface, regardless of the original intent or perceived joke. British comedy The Mighty Boosh was pulled from Netflix because of its returning blackface character named The Spirit of Jazz. A few days before that, Netflix also took down an episode of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’ 2015 comedy show W/Bob and David for a scene in which Cross is in blackface.

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