diff --git a/.github/workflows/docs.yaml b/.github/workflows/docs.yaml
index fb19fdc54f..f8aabde832 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/docs.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/docs.yaml
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ jobs:
           conda install "pip<21.2.1" 
           conda list
           doit develop_install -o doc -o examples
-          pip install pyecharts idom==0.24 ipympl
+          pip install pyecharts idom==0.24
       - name: temporarily pin jinja2
         run: |
           eval "$(conda shell.bash hook)"
diff --git a/examples/reference/panes/IPyWidget.ipynb b/examples/reference/panes/IPyWidget.ipynb
index a884edfc7d..3c41b5e91a 100644
--- a/examples/reference/panes/IPyWidget.ipynb
+++ b/examples/reference/panes/IPyWidget.ipynb
@@ -10,18 +10,14 @@
     "import panel as pn\n",
     "import ipywidgets as ipw\n",
     "\n",
-    "pn.extension()"
+    "pn.extension('ipywidgets')"
    ]
   },
   {
    "cell_type": "markdown",
    "metadata": {},
    "source": [
-    "The ``IPyWidget`` pane renders any ipywidgets model both in the notebook and in a deployed server. This makes it possible to leverage this growing ecosystem directly from within Panel simply by wrapping the component in a Pane or Panel. However when rendering ipywidgets on the server you may have to initialize the `ipywidgets` extension by running:\n",
-    "\n",
-    "```python\n",
-    "pn.extension('ipywidgets')\n",
-    "```\n",
+    "The ``IPyWidget`` pane renders any ipywidgets model both in the notebook and in a deployed server. This makes it possible to leverage this growing ecosystem directly from within Panel simply by wrapping the component in a Pane or Panel.\n",
     "\n",
     "In the notebook this is not necessary since Panel simply uses the regular notebook ipywidget renderer. Particularly in JupyterLab importing the ipywidgets extension in this way may interfere with the UI and render the JupyterLab UI unusable, so enable the extension with care.\n",
     "\n",
diff --git a/examples/reference/panes/Matplotlib.ipynb b/examples/reference/panes/Matplotlib.ipynb
index b2ca992965..40fb7f7331 100644
--- a/examples/reference/panes/Matplotlib.ipynb
+++ b/examples/reference/panes/Matplotlib.ipynb
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
    "source": [
     "import panel as pn\n",
     "\n",
-    "pn.extension()"
+    "pn.extension('ipywidgets')"
    ]
   },
   {
diff --git a/panel/config.py b/panel/config.py
index 9666317302..98accf9677 100644
--- a/panel/config.py
+++ b/panel/config.py
@@ -468,6 +468,12 @@ def __call__(self, *args, **params):
         }
         for arg in args:
             if arg in self._imports:
+                try:
+                    if (arg == 'ipywidgets' and get_ipython() and
+                        not "PANEL_IPYWIDGET" in os.environ): # noqa (get_ipython)
+                        continue
+                except Exception:
+                    pass
                 __import__(self._imports[arg])
             elif arg in reactive_exts:
                 ReactiveHTMLMetaclass._loaded_extensions.add(arg)
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index f9510d77b8..12a3d22445 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -149,12 +149,14 @@ def run(self):
         'ipywidgets_bokeh',
         'ipyvolume',
         'ipyleaflet',
+        'ipympl',
+        'folium',
         'xarray',
         'pyinstrument >=4.0',
         'aiohttp',
         'croniter',
         'graphviz',
-        'networkx>=2.5',
+        'networkx >=2.5',
         'pygraphviz'
     ],
     'tests': _tests,