diff --git a/pandas/io/formats/printing.py b/pandas/io/formats/printing.py
index e0f53f671017a..a101113da23ba 100644
--- a/pandas/io/formats/printing.py
+++ b/pandas/io/formats/printing.py
@@ -81,12 +81,7 @@ def _join_unicode(lines, sep=''):
 #    It will always return unicode text which can handled by other
 #    parts of the package without breakage.
 #
-# 2) If you need to send something to the console, use console_encode().
-#
-#    console_encode() should (hopefully) choose the right encoding for you
-#    based on the encoding set in option "display.encoding"
-#
-# 3) if you need to write something out to file, use
+# 2) if you need to write something out to file, use
 #    pprint_thing_encoded(encoding).
 #
 #    If no encoding is specified, it defaults to utf-8. Since encoding pure
diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/formats/test_printing.py b/pandas/tests/io/formats/test_printing.py
index ec34e7656e01f..c9c46d4a991ec 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/formats/test_printing.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/formats/test_printing.py
@@ -202,19 +202,3 @@ def test_enable_data_resource_formatter(self):
             assert formatters[mimetype].enabled
             # smoke test that it works
             self.display_formatter.format(cf)
-
-
-# TODO: fix this broken test
-
-# def test_console_encode():
-#     """
-#     On Python 2, if sys.stdin.encoding is None (IPython with zmq frontend)
-#     common.console_encode should encode things as utf-8.
-#     """
-#     if compat.PY3:
-#         pytest.skip
-
-#     with tm.stdin_encoding(encoding=None):
-#         result = printing.console_encode(u"\u05d0")
-#         expected = u"\u05d0".encode('utf-8')
-#         assert (result == expected)