Kenya Barris Details Reasons Behind The Shelved ‘Black-ish’ Episode On ‘The Daily Show’

Black-ish creator Kenya Barris joined Trevor Noah on The Daily Show Thursday night where he talked about the decision to shelve a highly political episode of the praised series, and what led to its recent resurrection. As we reported Monday, more than two years after ABC decided not to air the “Please Baby Please” episode, it is now available on Hulu.

As to why the episode, which Barris acknowledged was “blatantly the most partisan episode of Black-ish we’ve ever done,” was initially shelved, Barris told Noah it was “creative differences” over what should and should not be included in the episode and that he was not willing to compromise on things he felt were critical. He also said it came “during an interesting time in Disney’s growth,” as well as “interesting time in our country’s growth”.

More from Deadline

“Bob Iger understood and really supported where I was coming from but, at the same time, was running a publicly traded company during a merger and things like that,” Barris told Noah. “We came to a really, at the time unfortunate, but respectful understanding that I did not want to put it out with changing it and they didn’t want to put it out without changing it.”

Barris recalled a recent talk with Iger, whom he describes as “the best CEO I’ve ever talked to,” about now bringing the episode to light.

“We had a real honest conversation about this episode. He was like ‘I love the episode,'” Barris said. He also recalled Iger saying ‘”the time is there'” and ‘”there’s a lot of curiosity'” as to why the episode was shelved, so ‘”let’s put it out and let people sort of on their own find their answer.'”

Barris said he’s happy with what people have been saying about the episode since its release. “One of the highlights of my writing career is to be able to have something that you felt like was gone that you’re really proud of to be able to come back and, actually during a time when we’re actually in all this stuff, speak to people and start a conversation.”

You can watch the entire conversation above.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.