diff --git a/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py b/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
index 72bea8c458f9e..a83f8b3a9521f 100644
--- a/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
+++ b/pandas/io/tests/test_stata.py
@@ -19,9 +19,8 @@
 from pandas.util.misc import is_little_endian
 from pandas import compat
 
-def skip_if_not_little_endian():
-    if not is_little_endian():
-        raise nose.SkipTest("known failure of test on non-little endian")
+if not is_little_endian():
+    raise nose.SkipTest("known failure of test_stata on non-little endian")
 
 class TestStata(tm.TestCase):
 
@@ -198,8 +197,6 @@ def test_read_dta4(self):
         tm.assert_frame_equal(parsed_117, expected)
 
     def test_read_write_dta5(self):
-        # skip_if_not_little_endian()
-
         original = DataFrame([(np.nan, np.nan, np.nan, np.nan, np.nan)],
                              columns=['float_miss', 'double_miss', 'byte_miss',
                                       'int_miss', 'long_miss'])
@@ -212,8 +209,6 @@ def test_read_write_dta5(self):
                                   original)
 
     def test_write_dta6(self):
-        # skip_if_not_little_endian()
-
         original = self.read_csv(self.csv3)
         original.index.name = 'index'
         original.index = original.index.astype(np.int32)
@@ -245,8 +240,6 @@ def test_read_dta9(self):
         tm.assert_frame_equal(parsed, expected)
 
     def test_read_write_dta10(self):
-        # skip_if_not_little_endian()
-
         original = DataFrame(data=[["string", "object", 1, 1.1,
                                     np.datetime64('2003-12-25')]],
                              columns=['string', 'object', 'integer', 'floating',
@@ -284,8 +277,6 @@ def test_encoding(self):
             self.assertIsInstance(result, unicode)
 
     def test_read_write_dta11(self):
-        # skip_if_not_little_endian()
-
         original = DataFrame([(1, 2, 3, 4)],
                              columns=['good', compat.u('b\u00E4d'), '8number', 'astringwithmorethan32characters______'])
         formatted = DataFrame([(1, 2, 3, 4)],
@@ -303,8 +294,6 @@ def test_read_write_dta11(self):
             tm.assert_frame_equal(written_and_read_again.set_index('index'), formatted)
 
     def test_read_write_dta12(self):
-        # skip_if_not_little_endian()
-
         original = DataFrame([(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)],
                              columns=['astringwithmorethan32characters_1',
                                       'astringwithmorethan32characters_2',
diff --git a/pandas/tests/test_base.py b/pandas/tests/test_base.py
index 39d8eb8360244..927e096f8d769 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/test_base.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/test_base.py
@@ -246,7 +246,11 @@ def test_value_counts_unique_nunique(self):
                     # Unable to assign None
                     continue
 
-                values[0:2] = null_obj
+                # special assign to the numpy array
+                if o.values.dtype == 'datetime64[ns]':
+                    values[0:2] = pd.tslib.iNaT
+                else:
+                    values[0:2] = null_obj
 
                 # create repeated values, 'n'th element is repeated by n+1 times
                 if isinstance(o, PeriodIndex):