TV sitcom Scrubs removes blackface episodes

The three Scrubs episodes featured white actors Sarah Chalke and Zach Braff (pictured with Donald Adeosun Faison, right) in blackface.

Streaming service Hulu has dropped three episodes of the medical sitcom Scrubs due to the use of blackface by non-black actors.

The move, at the request of ABC Studios in the US and the show's creator, Bill Lawrence, has removed the episodes "My Friend the Doctor" from season three and season five's "My Jiggly Ball" and "My Chopped Liver".

Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke were the actors portraying blackface, news.com.au reported.

Scrubs, which followed the lives of employees at a fictional teaching hospital, aired on NBC for nine seasons from 2001 to 2010.

This move comes the same week that streaming services pulled episodes of 30 Rock for featuring blackface, at the request of the show's creator and star, Tina Fey.

Female singing group The Chicks has dropped "Dixie" from its name because it is slang for America's southern, pro-slavery states.

They followed Grammy-winning country trio Lady Antebellum changing its name to Lady A, because of antebellum's (which means pre-war) association with the slavery before the Civil War.

In a flurry of moves correcting associations with the oppression of African-Americans, Disney's Splash Mountain is to be re-themed to the "Princess and the Frog".

Splash Mountain stars animated characters from Song of the South. a 1946 film set in the antebellum South depicting stereotyped "spiritual" black men.

TV show host Jimmy Kimmel has also apologised for blackface sketches.

After requesting the offending 30 Rock episodes be removed, Tina Fey said the shows "featuring actors in race-changing makeup are best taken out of circulation".

Tina Fey (centre) has asked episodes of 30 Rock featuring white actors in Black Face be removed. Photo / NBC

"I understand now that 'intent' is not a free pass for white people to use these images.

"I apologise for pain they have caused.

"Going forward, no comedy-loving kid needs to stumble on these tropes and be stung by their ugliness."

More television shows announcing changes regarding race and representation included Big Mouth and Central Park which said they would recast the roles of black and mixed-race animated characters with black or mixed-race voice actors.