diff --git a/django/core/management/commands/testserver.py b/django/core/management/commands/testserver.py
index 54e63b97e28..a629e7285a1 100644
--- a/django/core/management/commands/testserver.py
+++ b/django/core/management/commands/testserver.py
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ from django.db import connection
 
 class Command(BaseCommand):
     help = 'Runs a development server with data from the given fixture(s).'
-    args = '[fixture ...]'
 
     requires_system_checks = False
 
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.8.1.txt b/docs/releases/1.8.1.txt
index 1dff6170636..61c506b10a1 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.8.1.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.8.1.txt
@@ -11,3 +11,6 @@ Bugfixes
 
 * Added support for serializing :class:`~datetime.timedelta` objects in
   migrations (:ticket:`24566`).
+
+* Restored proper parsing of the :djadmin:`testserver` command's positional
+  arguments (fixture names) (:ticket:`24571`).
diff --git a/tests/admin_scripts/tests.py b/tests/admin_scripts/tests.py
index ed0958af3f6..7b2617e6760 100644
--- a/tests/admin_scripts/tests.py
+++ b/tests/admin_scripts/tests.py
@@ -1326,6 +1326,21 @@ class ManageRunserverEmptyAllowedHosts(AdminScriptTestCase):
         self.assertOutput(err, 'CommandError: You must set settings.ALLOWED_HOSTS if DEBUG is False.')
 
 
+class ManageTestserver(AdminScriptTestCase):
+    from django.core.management.commands.testserver import Command as TestserverCommand
+
+    @mock.patch.object(TestserverCommand, 'handle')
+    def test_testserver_handle_params(self, mock_handle):
+        out = StringIO()
+        call_command('testserver', 'blah.json', stdout=out)
+        mock_handle.assert_called_with(
+            'blah.json',
+            stdout=out, settings=None, pythonpath=None, verbosity=1,
+            traceback=False, addrport='', no_color=False, use_ipv6=False,
+            skip_checks=True, interactive=True,
+        )
+
+
 ##########################################################################
 # COMMAND PROCESSING TESTS
 # Check that user-space commands are correctly handled - in particular,