diff --git a/examples/pylab_examples/font_table_ttf.py b/examples/pylab_examples/font_table_ttf.py
old mode 100644
new mode 100755
index 6400efb0bb3d..0a80c535dce4
--- a/examples/pylab_examples/font_table_ttf.py
+++ b/examples/pylab_examples/font_table_ttf.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
 for ccode, glyphind in codes:
     if ccode>=256: continue
     r,c = divmod(ccode,16)
-    s = chr(ccode)
+    s = unichr(ccode)
     chars[r][c] = s
 
 
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/cbook.py b/lib/matplotlib/cbook.py
index c3d8ff596394..cd1dc68e197e 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/cbook.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/cbook.py
@@ -1820,7 +1820,11 @@ def __call__(self, key):
 def is_math_text(s):
     # Did we find an even number of non-escaped dollar signs?
     # If so, treat is as math text.
-    s = unicode(s)
+    try:
+        s = unicode(s)
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        raise ValueError(
+            "matplotlib display text must have all code points < 128 or use Unicode strings")
 
     dollar_count = s.count(r'$') - s.count(r'\$')
     even_dollars = (dollar_count > 0 and dollar_count % 2 == 0)