diff --git a/docs/example_generation.jl b/docs/example_generation.jl
index 37ded2f9..b19c8861 100644
--- a/docs/example_generation.jl
+++ b/docs/example_generation.jl
@@ -133,7 +133,7 @@ end
 # note: generate separately so it's easy to comment out
 generate_markdown(:qwt)
 generate_markdown(:gadfly)
-generate_markdown(:unicodeplots)
+@osx_only generate_markdown(:unicodeplots)
 generate_markdown(:pyplot)
 
 
diff --git a/src/backends/pyplot.jl b/src/backends/pyplot.jl
index 71337316..ee2e52fb 100644
--- a/src/backends/pyplot.jl
+++ b/src/backends/pyplot.jl
@@ -141,6 +141,9 @@ function plot!(::PyPlotPackage, plt::Plot; kw...)
     d[:serieshandle] = plotfunc(d[:x], d[:y]; extraargs...)
   end
 
+  # this sets the bg color inside the grid (plt.o.o == matplotlib.Figure)
+  plt.o.o[:axes][1][:set_axis_bgcolor](getPyPlotColor(plt.initargs[:background_color]))
+
   push!(plt.seriesargs, d)
   plt
 end