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"Fear Itself" is the fourth aired episode of Extreme Ghostbusters, first broadcast on September 4, 1997. 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.
In an abandoned building, Mr. Swank imagines turning the space into the city's swankiest nightclub. A demolition worker uncovers a covered-up passage and warns him off, but Swank explores anyway. The floor collapses and he is left clinging to a plank over a deep abyss as a small creature watches.
Back at the Firehouse, 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 Swank's building, where paramedics are hauling him away. Kylie scans him and the worker mentions Swank had just spoken about his fear of heights before going into the basement.
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, which terrify her. 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.
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 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 episode also 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's line "There is nothing to fear but fear, itself" gives the episode its title, echoing a phrase associated with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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.
This episode is the fourth aired entry of the series, following The True Face of a Monster and preceding Deadliners.
