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"Fear Itself" is the fourth aired episode of Extreme Ghostbusters, first broadcast on September 4, 1997, with production number 103. It was written by Duane Capizzi and directed by Audu Paden, with animation by Koko Enterprise Company, Ltd. The story follows the new team into a renovated building's hidden basement, where a ghost brings each Ghostbuster's worst fear to life.
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Police surround a dive bar called Vinnie's Club as patrons flee. Animated knives lunge at the officers before Garrett Miller arrives. His P.K.E. Meter reads the ghost as only a Level C, so he goes in alone despite Egon Spengler telling him over the radio to wait for backup. Inside he meets the Biker Ghost. Garrett blasts the ghost's head off, but it regrows another and knocks him into a phone booth, where his fear of small spaces takes hold. Eduardo Rivera and Kylie Griffin arrive and trap the ghost. Meanwhile, Roland Jackson had been under Ecto-1 trying to fix a clogged fuel line, unaware the others had left.
Back at the Firehouse, Egon congratulates the team on another successful bust. Roland questions whether Garrett should have gone in alone, and Eduardo notes he did not look great in the phone booth. Roland blames himself for not catching the fuel-line problem before they left, insisting it is his job to keep the equipment reliable. The team is then called to Mr. Swank's building (address 842), where paramedics are hauling Swank away. Janine Melnitz is at the Firehouse when the call comes in. Kylie scans Swank and the demolition worker mentions Swank had just spoken about his fear of heights before going into the basement. It is also revealed that Slimer ate everyone's lunches, including Egon's steamed broccoli, and subsequently barfed it back up.
In an abandoned building, Mr. Swank had imagined turning the space into the city's swankiest nightclub. The demolition worker uncovered a covered-up passage and warned him off, but Swank explored anyway. The floor collapsed and he was left clinging to a plank over a deep abyss as a small creature watched.
In the basement the team finds the place is a giant maze. They split up. Kylie falls down a chute into a pile of maggots. As they regroup, Kylie suspects the entity is a Class 5 Demonoid, and the team works out that it detects a person's fears and makes them real. The ghost picks them off one by one: Roland's Proton Pack shorts out and turns into a tentacled monster; Kylie is dropped into a room of maggots that merge into one giant maggot; Eduardo, afraid of death, is confronted by a coffin and a dead version of himself; and Garrett is sealed inside a coffin and then a closing hallway, escaping by heating a block with his thrower and breaking through the wall. Slimer, meanwhile, is menaced by his own fear: a tray of broccoli in a basement kitchen.
Surrounded by their manifested fears, the team stops trying to conquer their own and instead switch targets, each destroying someone else's manifestation. They find the entity cowering and weak. Rather than destroy it, they conclude it had been alone in the basement for ages and was only defending its realm. The team has the worker seal the passage again, leaving the creature in peace. When asked what his own fear is, Garrett insists he is fearless, though Kylie hints she knows otherwise.
The Fear Itself ghost is the episode's main antagonist. It is a small, insect-like entity that took up residence in underground catacombs beneath the building eons before the events of the episode. Spengler's Spirit Guide records its first sighting in New York in 1930, and classifies it as a Class 3 Bi-Ped with strong ectoplasmic tendencies (Level 3, Transparency 2.1, Wave Frequency .0316). The guide's comments read simply: "Be friendly, he will go away."
Within the episode the Ghostbusters speculate it could be a Level A shapeshifter or a Class 5 Demonoid, though the Spirit Guide settles the classification. The ghost's defining ability is materializing people's phobias as physical threats, which it uses as a purely defensive tactic. It suffers from Anthropophobia, a fear of people, and is protective of its subterranean home rather than malevolent. It is among the less hostile entities the Extreme Ghostbusters encountered, and is one of the few they chose not to trap.
The ghost's design was a collaboration among illustrator Everett Peck, executive producer Richard Raynis, and character designer Fil Barlow. Raynis pushed for a pathetic quality in the final design, which informs the creature's frightened, cowering appearance when the team finally corners it.
The Fear Itself ghost reappears as a boss in the PlayStation game Extreme Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Invasion, and makes a second in-series appearance in the episode "Mole People."
The Biker Ghost appears in the cold open at Vinnie's Club. It is a relatively minor entity, rated only Level C on Garrett's P.K.E. Meter, and is captured by Eduardo and Kylie after knocking Garrett into a phone booth. Garrett refers to it as "Casper," after the famous friendly ghost character. The Biker Ghost reappears as a standard enemy in Extreme Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Invasion.
The episode names a fear for nearly every member of the team. Garrett is claustrophobic. Kylie is afraid of maggots. Eduardo is necrophobic, afraid of death. Roland's fear is his equipment breaking down, which is why the malfunctioning Ecto-1 weighs on him through the episode. Slimer is afraid of broccoli. Of the guest characters, Mr. Swank is acrophobic, afraid of heights.
The episode features the regular voice cast of Tara Strong (credited as Tara Charendoff), Maurice LaMarche, Jason Marsden, Pat Musick, Alfonso Ribeiro, Rino Romano, and Billy West, with guest voice work by Dee Bradley Baker.
Garrett calls the Biker Ghost "Casper," after the friendly cartoon ghost. The 1995 film "Casper" is also notable for a cameo by Dan Aykroyd as Ray Stantz, a detail Fandom's trivia connects to this moment.
The episode marks the first time the new team is named on screen as the Extreme Ghostbusters, by Garrett. Kylie's dark style draws comparisons to Vampira, the television horror host portrayed by Maila Nurmi, and the team rattles off her black hair, black nail polish, and taste for the band Nine Inch Nails. Garrett also deploys the classic line "I ain't afraid of no ghosts" twice during the episode.
Garrett's line "There is nothing to fear but fear, itself" gives the episode its title. The phrase is attributed both to Sir Francis Bacon and, more famously in popular culture, to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Eduardo says "Maybe he's dead" twice during the course of the episode.
The Biker Ghost and the Fear Itself ghost both reappear in the PlayStation game Extreme Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Invasion, where the biker is an enemy and the fear ghost serves as a boss. The zombie version of Eduardo seen in this episode was later reused as a reference point for fear manifestations in the IDW Publishing comic series Ghostbusters: Crossing Over (issue 6, page 12).
This episode is the fourth aired entry of the series, following The True Face of a Monster and preceding Deadliners.
