Animated comedy series Archer is soon returning for its sixth season, and there will be one notable change when it hits television screens again.

Since the show started back in 2009, the programme's main characters have worked for a fictional spy agency called ISIS - or the International Secret Intelligence Service.

As you can probably guess, that acronym now has some negative real-life associations given the rise of Islamic State - often referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Creator Adam Reed told Daily Beast that the creative team have tried to quietly remove references to ISIS from the new series.  

"We were waiting for it to go away—at least I was," Reed explained. "Back in Season 5, FX said, ‘This might be a thing,’... We got sort of lucky and could organically make a merger with the CIA, so we went back and retroactively painted out the ISIS logos in parts of the show, and we just don’t talk about it in dialogue."

The only reference to the acronym being removed is said to be a shot of the organisation's logo being taken away in the first episode of season six. The ISIS references are not expected to be removed from earlier episodes.

There is one unexpected side effect, however. Executives at FX - the US network that broadcasts the show - are suddenly left with a whole lot of troublesome ISIS merchandise. According to Adam Reed, it is all likely to end up in "a landfill somewhere"