Trivia / black•ish

• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Bow excitedly shows Zoey around Brown University, Tracee Ellis-Ross' real alma mater.
  • Ruby reveals that she used to be a back up singer for Bette Midler, just like Jenifer Lewis.
• The Cast Showoff: In 'Twindependence', Zoey speaks some Farsi - Yara Shahidi is half-Iranian and Farsi was one of the first languages she learned.
• Channel Hop: In 2021, reruns of the series moved from FXX to Freeform.
• In Memoriam: One episode had one to Producer Gail Lerner's children Ruby and Hart Campell, who died in a car crash. The tribute scene showed Jack and Diane bonding with each other after the latter has a nightmare about slipping away from each other.
• Making Use of the Twin: Due to California's Labor Laws involving infant actors, Devante is played by twin boys plus two other babies including a girl.
• Missing Episode" Season 4's "Please, Baby, Please". Touching on the anthem protest issue in the NFL, it was pulled from airing over creative differences. This was the final straw for showrunner Kenya Barris, who left the show and ABC after the season was over because he felt that the network was silencing him to appease Donald Trump supporters that the network was now trying to attract. The episode finally aired in August 2020 when it debuted on Hulu.
• Out of Order: Season 3, AKA "How pregnant is Bow this time?". It's fairly obvious too when she goes from ready to pop in one episode, to looking barely a few months in at best in the next.
• Playing Against Type: Laurence Fishburne, known for usually playing serious, dramatic roles in stuff like Boyz n the Hood, The Matrix, and Hannibal, gives an uncharacteristically funny turn as Pops. Then again, he DID get his start as Cowboy Curtis.
• Reality Subtext: Zoey is away at college at the same time that her actress, Yara Shahidi, is attending Harvard.
• Real-Life Relative: Marsai Martin's younger sister and cousin play Devante in some episodes.
  • In "Any Given Saturday", Yara Sharidi's brother Sayeed Shahidi played Adonis Culpepper.
• Write What You Know:
  • Creator Kenya Barris is married to a doctor named Rainbow, who is also mixed-race. They also got married in 1999, which just happens to be right about the time Dre and Bow did.
  • The "hip-hop bro mitzvah" comes from something Anthony Anderson did for his own son.
• Written-In Absence: To explain Laurence Fishburne missing some episodes due to also being in Hannibal, the writers threw in an offhanded line about Pops being on vacation in Bermuda.

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