diff --git a/youtube_dl/__init__.py b/youtube_dl/__init__.py
index 8e186a0db..c1323b4f3 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/__init__.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/__init__.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
     compat_expanduser,
     compat_getpass,
     compat_print,
+    workaround_optparse_bug9161,
 )
 from .utils import (
     DateRange,
@@ -57,6 +58,8 @@ def _real_main(argv=None):
         # https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/820
         codecs.register(lambda name: codecs.lookup('utf-8') if name == 'cp65001' else None)
 
+    workaround_optparse_bug9161()
+
     setproctitle('youtube-dl')
 
     parser, opts, args = parseOpts(argv)
diff --git a/youtube_dl/compat.py b/youtube_dl/compat.py
index 385924803..64a975489 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/compat.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/compat.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
 import getpass
+import optparse
 import os
 import subprocess
 import sys
@@ -297,6 +298,26 @@ def compat_kwargs(kwargs):
 else:
     compat_kwargs = lambda kwargs: kwargs
 
+
+# Fix https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/4223
+# See http://bugs.python.org/issue9161 for what is broken
+def workaround_optparse_bug9161():
+    try:
+        optparse.OptionGroup('foo').add_option('-t')
+    except TypeError:
+        real_add_option = optparse.OptionGroup.add_option
+
+        def _compat_add_option(self, *args, **kwargs):
+            enc = lambda v: (
+                v.encode('ascii', 'replace') if isinstance(v, compat_str)
+                else v)
+            bargs = [enc(a) for a in args]
+            bkwargs = dict(
+                (k, enc(v)) for k, v in kwargs.items())
+            return real_add_option(self, *bargs, **bkwargs)
+        optparse.OptionGroup.add_option = _compat_add_option
+
+
 __all__ = [
     'compat_HTTPError',
     'compat_chr',
@@ -323,4 +344,5 @@ def compat_kwargs(kwargs):
     'compat_xml_parse_error',
     'shlex_quote',
     'subprocess_check_output',
+    'workaround_optparse_bug9161',
 ]