Black-ish to premiere election-themed animated special from Hair Love director

The Johnson family is going animated for the first time this year to address the upcoming election.

ABC announced Wednesday that black-ish will premiere an hourlong animated special of two back-to-back episodes directed by Matthew A. Cherry, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind the 2019 Hair Love short film.

Ahead of season 7, a premiere for which has yet to be announced, the special will drop on ABC Sunday, Oct. 4 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and will see the Johnsons navigating the 2020 election.

It begins with “Election Special Pt. 1,” which sees Junior (Marcus Scribner) excited for his first time voting “but discovers he has been purged from the voter polls so he does a deep dive into why — trying to understand the systems in place for voter registration,” according to a description.

Then, in “Election Special Pt. 2,” Dre’s (Anthony Anderson) colleague Stevens (Peter Mackenzie) “makes an ill-advised decision to run for Congress, so Dre enlists his family’s help and campaigns against him but gets caught up with fundraising and private interest groups.”

Tracee Ellis Ross, Yara Shahidi, Miles Brown, Marsai Martin, Laurence Fishburne, Jenifer Lewis, Peter Mackenzie, Deon Cole, and Jeff Meacham also feature on black-ish, created by Kenya Barris.

Cherry directs both episodes, while “Pt. 1” was written by Eric Horsted and “Pt. 2” was penned by Graham Towers and Ben Deeb.