Why Did It Have To Be Snakes / Western Animation

Snakes (Ophidiophobia), Reptiles (Herpetophobia)

• Danny Phantom has Tucker performing a Shout-Out to Indiana Jones by shouting the trope's name when multiple snakes appeared caused by Pandora's Box.
• Launchpad also parodies it in the Five-Episode Pilot of DuckTales: "Yah, a snake! I hate snakes! No... that's somebody else. I sorta like snakes." Then one nearly eats him: "Now I hate snakes."
• In the American Dragon: Jake Long episode "Bring It On", Jake uses these words verbatim.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Twilight Sparkle is terrified of snakes, as shown in "Winter Wrap-Up". She is also terrified of ladybugs.
  Twilight Sparkle: When I was a filly, a swarm of them got into our house. Shining Armor told me that their spots were extra eyes, watching wherever you go. So creepy...
  • And Fluttershy is shown to be utterly terrified of dragons in "Dragonshy". (Well, huge adult dragons, anyways. Small baby ones, like Spike, apparently have the opposite effect.)
• Yar, the lemur chief from Dinosaur apparently has a huge fear of dinosaurs. He eventually gets over it after a newly-hatched Aladar pees in his face.
• In one episode of Doug, Roger is afraid of snakes.
• DJ from Total Drama is terrified of snakes. He even completely freaks out when he mistakes a gummy worm for one.
• Archer has three great fears. Two of them are alligators and crocodiles, to the point where he has memorized every single fatal alligator and crocodile attack in the United States. He would have memorized the ones in China, but their records are spottier.
• Gene from Bob's Burgers reveals his fear of snakes in "It Snakes a Village". He even sings a song about it.
  ♫ I'm... not afraid of ghosts, ♫
  ♫ I'm not afraid of sharks, ♫
  ♫ I'm not afraid of cancer, ♫
  ♫ I'm just afraid of snakes! ♫
  ♫ They really creep me out! ♫
  ♫ Where are their arms and legs?! ♫
  ♫ IT'S NOT OKAY! ♫
• Terk from The Legend of Tarzan becomes deathly afraid of the raptors from Pellucidar when one makes it to the surface.
• Inez of Cyberchase is terrified of snakes.
• Ma from The Crumpets mentions that she can't stand reptiles when one of her eldest sons asks if he can bring his pet crocodile to her care in "Croco-Deal".
• A scene in an episode of Rugrats which directly parodied Indiana Jones had Tommy afraid of lizards, and he quoted the trope out loud, except replacing 'snakes' with 'lizzers'.

Spiders (Arachnophobia)

• Gumball Watterson of The Amazing World of Gumball is shown to have this in the episode "The Date". He is bitten by a tarantula and ends up in the hospital, where the tarantula attacks him again.
• William Dunbar of Code Lyoko is afraid of them. It isn't clear whether or not he is afraid of the virtual Tarantulas on Lyoko.
• FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman In "Finding Eight-Legged Tights Isn't Easy", Ruff's afraid of spiders, because of Spotnik's Prank Gone Too Far that also head to him being afraid of ballet. Thankfully, Brian, Sterling, and Bethany helped Ruff overcome his phobias.
• In an episode of Gargoyles, Elisa's mom, Diana, was faced with the spider god Anansi and his minions, causing her to say "Spiders! Why did it have to be spiders?"
• In Hey Arnold! Arnold's parents, who are homages to Indiana Jones, both have a fear of spiders.
• Norman from Mighty Max. There is a possible nod to this in the introduction, where every encounter Max faces in the introduction is handled by Norman. The only encounter Max directly deals with himself is the large spider. This is at least partly to do with a prophecy that a spider would kill him, which happens in one of the final episodes. If you knew that was going to happen, wouldn't you be antsy around arachnids?
• Salem on Sabrina: The Animated Series faced a spider and nervously said, "Why couldn't it be snakes? I like snakes." But the desperate situation lent him the courage to shred the web and make the spider fall.
• Optimus Prime of Transformers: Animated, though given what happened to Elita-1, it's not exactly an irrational fear.
  • Due to the same incident, Sentinel Prime became terrified of all things organic. He eventually got over it at least enough to leave the spaceship.
  • Miko would probably get along with Optimus rather well, then.
• Mike of Mike, Lu & Og is afraid of spiders.
• In the Mickey Mouse (2013) cartoon "Goofy's Grandma", Goofy ends up disguising himself as his grandmother to crash at Mickey's because there is a spider in his house. To be fair, it is a really big spider.
• Billy of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is shown to be terrified of spiders. This is, of course, a problem for his "son" Jeff.
• In the Danger Mouse episode "Aiaaagg! Spiders!", Penfold freaks out at a spider in the bathroom. Danger Mouse goes to take care of it, but the spider is much bigger than anticipated. In one episode the 2015 revival of the series "The World Wide Spider", Danger Mouse has a fear of spiders instead of Penfold, though it's the really big ones (capable of eating mice) he's really afraid of.
• Leni from The Loud House is deathly afraid of spiders. So is her father. He has the exterminator on speed dial.
• Total Drama: Leshawna, Cameron and Bowie are all established to be afraid of spiders. Cameron manages to get over it after having to face mutant Giant Spider (which turns out to be Izzy in a costume), but gains a new fear in the process - Izzy.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Spike expresses a fear of spiders, notably in the episode "Every Little Thing She Does". In the same episode, Harry the Bear and the other animals are scared from seeing Fluttershy covered in bugs, too.
• The Powerpuff Girls: Buttercup's nightmare realm fear in the "What Do They Fear?" Episode "Power-Noia" is of spiders. Blossom goads her into fighting back.
• Rubble of the PAW Patrol often has to fight his biggest fear: spiders.
• The Phineas and Ferb special "Phineas And Ferb Save Summer" reveals that Candace has been terrified of spiders since she was 5. She eventually faces her fear with Phineas's encouragement.

Insects (Entomophobia)

• American Dad!: Steve is secretly afraid of moths. Raiders of the Lost Ark gets a direct Shout-Out when Steve braves the highway on horseback and has to confront a swarm of them: "Moths! Why did it have to be moths?"
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Billy is deathly afraid of bugs, including spiders. This naturally creates a very awkward situation when Jeff, a Giant Spider who thinks Billy is his father, shows up. (Billy overcomes his fear and reconciles with Jeff in the third full-length movie.)
• The eponymous Eek! The Cat is really afraid of bugs.
• Kim Possible chews out Ron over complaining about a spider bite, however when a villain grows mutant cockroaches she has a very unKimlike freakout over how terrified she is of them. She's only okay with bugs when they're "little and flick-able." Ron on the other hand finds one giant Roach which acts more like a dog adorable and names it "Roachy".
• Rod and Todd Flanders of The Simpsons are afraid of moths and ladybugs.
• T-Bone of the SWAT Kats is revealed to be afraid of bugs in the episode "The Ci-Kat-A". Watching a movie about killer space bugs didn't help. What emerges from a retrieved space capsule later in the day? Giant insectoid alien parasites.
  T-Bone: Why did it have to be bugs?
  Razor: Just like that movie, T-Bone.
• The Oggy and the Cockroaches episode "Lightning Visit" subverts this. Oggy imagines his parents as having a fear of cockroaches, and worries that they'll leave if they catch sight of any of the cockroaches. It turns out they don't have any entomophobia, though.
• The Powerpuff Girls: Bubbles is afraid of cockroaches and wasn't happy when she had to eat one while disguised as Boomer.
• Averted and subverted in Hyperion's series The Itsy Bitsy Spider (1993-95, USA cable channel, based on a 1992 theatrical short subject). Itsy is befriended by a little girl and is the target of fruitless pursuit and destruction by the little girl's teacher and a gung-ho exterminator.
• Raphael of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) freaks out when he sees a Cockroach. Especially a giant mutant cockroach that wants to terminate him. He's not terribly fond of bugs in the 2003 series either, as seen in "April's Artifact":
  Raphael I ain't scared!I just hate bugs.
  Michelangelo What about that huge one crawling up your shell?
  Raphael Where?! Where?!
• On Total Drama, Beth is afraid of insects, especially the idea of being covered in them.
• One episode of Camp Lazlo showed that Raj was terrified of insects to the point where he bug-proofs the entire cabin after a moth enters it. However, he later (temporarily) overcomes it when befriending a cute elephant-like beetle he names "Elebug".
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic short "Starlight the Hypnotist", Twilight is revealed to be massively terrified of... ladybugs. It's Shining Armor's fault - he pranked her by saying their spots were extra eyes.

Mice & Rats (Musophobia)

• Mammy Two Shoes from the Tom and Jerry shorts, as well as similar characters from various animation.
  • One short, "Jerry-Go-Round", has a circus elephant afraid of Jerry, but grew to like him (and protective of him) after Jerry pulled a tack off her foot.
  • Tom has an identical cousin who is also afraid of mice. Tom takes this as an opportunity to not only help his cousin face his fear, but to also successfully screw with Jerry's head.
• A common phobia of cartoon housewives in the 50s.
• In Hey Arnold!, Helga Pataki is deathly afraid of live rats, but only has sneering contempt for musicals starring people dressed in rat costumes.
• Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) is terrified of rats, even to the point of fainting right in front of Master Splinter.
• The PAW Patrol member who's afraid of mice is... the team's only feline member, Wild Cat.
• Oggy and the Cockroaches: Along with his below-mentioned fear of heights, Oggy will flip out in panic at the sight of a mouse, as "The Intruder" demonstrates.

Bats (Chiroptophobia)

• Hank Hill from King of the Hill is revealed to be deathly afraid of bats in "It Came from the Garage". When one shows up in his garage, he flees in terror and ends up locking Bobby inside with it (although ultimately, Hank's pride is hurt more than Bobby is by the incident). By the end, he manages to fight the fear long enough to save Bobby from sinking in a river while they were under a tunnel with hundreds of bats hanging from the ceiling.
• Pinkie Pie of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic might qualify; no less than one episode after singing a whole song about how she laughs at her fears, she freaks out when she mistakes a pair of tickets that landed on her nose for bats, somehow.
• Panthro from ThunderCats.
• As an incredible irony, the Scarecrow apparently had this phobia from the start of his career in Batman: The Animated Series. In the first episode where he appeared, he claimed that his fear serum caused a victim to envision his greatest fear. So what does it cause him to see when he is exposed to it by accident? Horrible, demonic bats.
• Gutsy in The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow encounters bats within the covered bridge that he crosses to get to Smurfy Hollow.
• April O'Neil from TMNT 2012 is terrified of bats. This is because of her father becoming a bat mutant.
• Inez of Cyberchase is shown to have this fear in The Movie; it appears to have replaced her previous fear of heights.
• In the 2006 revival of Biker Mice from Mars, the episode "Biker Mice Down Under" reveals that Vinnie is afraid of bats.
• The Deep (2015): In "Fossil", it is revealed that Ant is afraid of bats.
• On Casper and the Angels, Hairy Scary is afraid of bats.

Cats (Ailurophobia)

• Splinter has this phobia in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), and you really can't blame him, seeing as he's a rat. His worst fears are realized when one of Shredder's experiments turns April into a feral Cat Girl who fails to recognize him due to the stress of the transformation.
• The Little Dog in 2 Stupid Dogs.
• Peter Griffin of Family Guy is extremely freaked out by "that weird stretchy leg thing that cats do when they lick themselves."
• In one episode of The Powerpuff Girls, the Professor starts dating Ms. Keane, but when he finds out she has a cat, he's quickly turned off, saying he doesn't like them because of how he was brainwashed by a cat villain back in the first season (and his memories of the incident apparently returned).
• Massimo from Producing Parker is implied to have one in "Dog Dee Afternoon" as he sees one while running away from home and screams like a girl.

Dogs (Cynophobia)

• Even though they are part of somewhere else, Code Lyoko's Aelita is scared of wolves.
• Mr. Herriman from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is afraid of dogs. Considering he's an imaginary friend based on a prey animal, Herriman's fear is rather justified. It's so bad that he'll address Frankie by her nickname rather than "Miss Frances".
• Ray Rocket from Rocket Power is terrified of dogs, particularly poodles.
• The Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys episode "Mind Over Monkey" reveals that Spydor is afraid of pitbulls.

Rabbits (Leporiphobia)

• Ultimate Spider-Man: Nova's greatest fear are rabbits.

Frogs & Toads (Batrachophobia)

• WC Moore from Little Elvis Jones and the Truckstoppers freaks out every time he sees one.
• Wayne Cramp from The Cramp Twins is afraid of most things from the swamp but runs for the hills whenever he sees a frog or toad.

Bears (Arctophobia)

• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Irwin has a fear of bears. This, combined with the telling of jokes to and audience, is his worst fear as revealed in Big Boogey Adventure. Cue Horror's Hand conjuring it up for him.
• Phil Ken Sebben from Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law also has this fear, and is even voiced by Stephen Colbert. This isn't as much Actor Allusion as the actual Stephen Colbert really being afraid of bears.
• Molly of Denali: Trini is terrified of polar bears. She was worried that they were everywhere in Alaska like she was told, but luckily, they're not.
• Ikura from Sushi Pack has a fear of bears, including those that don't harm to him such as gummy bears. This makes sense, as salmon are part of a bear's diet.

Birds (Ornithophobia)

• American Dad!: Stan is afraid of seagulls.
• One Total Drama episode shows that Tyler is deathly afraid of chickens. This has him voted off the island, and on the boat of losers, he sees dozens of chickens and freaks out.
• Bob's Burgers: "House of 1000 Bounces" reveals that Bob is afraid of pigeons due to an incident as a child where he was attacked by a flock of them in the attic of an abandoned house. Turns out, that never happened; he's just misremembering a scene from The Birds that freaked him out as a kid (as Linda puts it, "You think you're Tippi Hedren!"), and he eventually gets over his fear.
• Skye of PAW Patrol is severely afraid of eagles — being the smallest member of the team and the Token Flyer would not make one a fan of large birds of prey.
• Nicky from Pepper Ann is terrified of swans, thanks to a demonic-sounding swan toy her and her sister had as kids.
• Lime Chiffon from Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City that she’s scared of pigeons to Blueberry Muffin in order to help her conquer her fear of the Sweet Tooth Fairy. Lime is fine with other birds though, as she has a pet parrot named Parfait.

Slugs & Snails (Molluscophobia)

• Tiny Toon Adventures: Elmyra, lover of all animals and things that are cute, hates slimey things, including slugs. She even whacks Plucky and Hampton when she mistakes them for giant slugs.

Other Animals

• Monkeys (Maimouphobia) — Ron from Kim Possible. Especially difficult given the recurring monkey-themed super villain Lord Monkey Fist. For further irony, in the episode introducing Monkey Fist, Ron is granted the Mystical Monkey Power the villain sought.
• Twister from Rocket Power develops a fear of giant monkeys in one episode.
• Gorillaz singer/keyboardist 2D is deathly afraid of whales. As of current canon he's being held prisoner in a small underwater cell with a whale lurking outside the window.
• Arthur's sister D.W. is terrified of octopuses.
• Scott from Total Drama is deathly afraid of sharks (galeophobia), which makes sense considering that he had a brush with Death after he got mauled by Fang, thereby scarring him. Even being near Fang is enough to put him in a blank state.
• Gretchen in Camp Lakebottom has a phobia about chipmunks, although she is seemingly cured by the events of "Cheeks of Dread".
• Vambre in Mighty Magiswords was assaulted by a literal horde-wall of squirrels in her childhood. This explains her insanity and fear of squirrels.
• In Xiaolin Showdown, Omi is afraid of squirrels and Raimundo is afraid of jellyfish.
• In DuckTales (2017), Della Duck has a fear of fish and anything fish-related. To the point where she prepared a submarine's torpedoes upon seeing Mervanans for the first time.

Flying (Aviophobia) or Heights (Acrophobia)

• Ulrich from Code Lyoko — though he's more exactly suffering from medical vertigo.
• The Simpsons: Marge Simpson, though mostly due to the fact of discovering her father was an air steward rather than a pilot as she thought.
• The Backyardigans: Tasha during the episode "Chichen-Itza Pizza". During a song, she chants the following:
  Tasha: Don't look down! Don't look down! Tasha, don't look down!
  Don't look down! Don't look down! Tasha, don't look down!
  Don't look down! Don't look down! Or you'll hit the ground!
• Oggy from Oggy and the Cockroaches is shown to have been afraid of heights in the episode "The Rise and the Fall". This trait was later given to Jack in "The Lighthouse Keeper".
• Total Drama's Owen and Izzy are both afraid of flying. While Izzy did get over it by the time of World Tour, Owen did not. Needless to say, the season wasn't much fun for him. And in Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race, it's shown that he still has a fear of flying, and has gotten himself a teddy bear to comfort him.
• Candace from Phineas and Ferb is known to be afraid of heights.
• Silverbolt, of the Transformers, is the commander of the Aerialbots. Just in case you can't parse the name: he transforms into a Concorde SST. Lampshaded in that the reason Optimus Prime made him commander of the Aerialbots was that Prime knew Silverbolt's worrying about their safety would keep his mind off it.
• In one episode of Rugrats, Chuckie develops a fear of heights after accidentally climbing the big kids' slide and finding himself way too high for his liking. The concept is played in an xkcd comic of a man who couldn't go down a slide because it looked so tall. As an adult, he revisits it, and is surprised to realize the slide really WAS that tall.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: While not quite so extreme as to be a fear, Toph explicitly has a strong dislike for flying, because lack of contact with the ground leaves her fully blind.
• Before Mabel cured him, Grunkle Stan from Gravity Falls had a major fear of heights, to the point where he refused to allow a ladder in the house.
• Marc Clark of The Amazing Spiez! though whether it was a Compressed Vice is debatable since he had no problems with flying (in fact, he tends to fly the team's jet) and the problem was gone by the end of the episode.
• Buster of Tiny Toon Adventures:
  Buster: (while on a plane) I hate flying, I hate flying, I hate flying, I hate flying...
• Inez of Cyberchase displays this fear on a number of occasions and has at least once outright stated "I hate heights!"
• Teslo from Mixels, which doesn't help with the fact that he lives in a high mountainous region.
• PAW Patrol's fire pup Marshall has no problem going up his ladder but is afraid of dangling from great heights such as when flying.
• In the Atomic Betty episode "Amulet Of Shangri La-De-Da" Sparky is revealed to have a fear of heights, which doesn't help when he's standing on a cloud formation high above the ground on a rescue mission.

Water (Hydrophobia/Aquaphobia)

• Alan Powers (The Brain), Arthur. He gets over it after falling into a fountain.
• Tommy Pickles, All Grown Up!, "River Rats". He gets over it saving a drowning Phil. He did not possess this phobia as an infant, though this is due to the incident happening when he was slightly older^note According to the episode, Tommy was on a fishing trip with his grandpa when he was roughly around three or four years old, fell in the river by accident and almost drowned.
• This is one of the two things that Dick Daring from The Replacements is scared of.
• Played for Laughs in Nature Cat. Nature Cat, like most cats, is afraid of water.
  "Why does it have to be water..."
• Super Mario Bros. (DiC):
  • Yoshi in the Super Mario World cartoon is afraid of water. May have gotten a Continuity Nod later with the tendency of Super Mario Sunshine's Yoshi to dissolve on contact with water.
  • In one episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario become afraid of water after nearly drowning when he turned into a block of cement. But he overcomes it to save his friends and the underwater city.
• Looney Tunes character The Tasmanian Devil, namely in his series Taz-Mania. "Taz hate water! Taz hate water!"
• Archie from Class of the Titans.
• Adventure Time: "Ocean of Fear" reveals that Finn is unfathomably afraid of the ocean. Rivers, lakes, puddles, any other body of water is fine, his fear is specific to the ocean. He briefly conquers that fear in order to rescue Jake, and he gets over it completely when he slew the Fear Feaster in "Billy's Bucket List".
• On Codename: Kids Next Door, Numbuh Four can't swim, so he's very afraid of water. Even after he learns how, he still avoids doing it whenever possible.
• In The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Grubby is afraid of the sea. This is due to an incident that occured when he was young, where, after saving his dad during a shipwreck, he fell overboard.
• Toph Bei Fong from Avatar: The Last Airbender hates sailing for the same reason that she hates flying (see the section above).
• Oggy from Oggy and the Cockroaches becomes afraid of water in the episode "Deep End" thanks to the cockroaches sabotaging a nice bath of his by turning the water temperature to insane levels and deflating his floating ring. He can't even swim when Jack wants him to. He however overcomes his fear at the end.
• Blackarachnia from Transformers: Animated, due to her being half-organic, for some reason is afraid of water. It may be because, as part-organic, she's now capable of drowning.
• Due to his biology, Invader Zim is burned by water, and is therefore afraid of it until he learns that coating himself in paste protects him. In fanon, he's often shown as still having a phobia of water.
• In Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, the Human Torch—perhaps unsurprisingly—does not like getting wet at all, and hates undersea missions with a passion. Atlantis episodes are therefore something of a trial for him.
• In the second episode of Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Chiro and Sparx are both revealed to have this fear. Both overcome it by the end of the episode.
• Lilo & Stitch: Stitch is afraid of water mainly because of his inability to swim. His molecular structure makes his body extremely dense, so he sinks like a rock in water. Naturally, he ends up in Hawaii.
• T-Bone of the SWAT Kats because he can't swim. He gets over it just in time to save Razor from drowning.
• Teddy in My Little Pony Tales is afraid of water and later has to face his fear when his cousin becomes stuck in a rushing river.
• Zigzagged with the Visionaries character Galadria, who has a fear of tidal waves but is otherwise completely comfortable around water. Not to mention that she's one of the two Visionaries (the other being her enemy, Virulina) whose Totem animals are aquatic creatures.
• In Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, Velma is terrified of water. She's about to explain why, but since the Mystery Machine is flooding at the moment the rest of the gang cuts her off.
• Terence from Rubbadubbers is afraid of water, even though he's a crocodile.
• In Sonic Boom, Sonic's fear of water is on display in the episode "I Can Sea Sonic's Fear From Here" as the others attempt to get Sonic over this fear. In a case of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, the episode ends with his fear getting worse due to nearly drowning.
• In an episode of Ozzy & Drix, Hector nearly drowns in the local swimming pool, so the mayor of his body orders the brain to program a fear of water to keep the body safe. Hector eventually overcomes the fear despite his cells trying to keep it up.
• In Teamo Supremo, Rope Girl reveals that she's "desperately" afraid of water, to the point that she has to bathe with sponges to avoid the bathtub.
• Poor Rocky of PAW Patrol hates and fears nothing more than water. The oceanside town he lives in and nature of his work results in him getting dunked in or splashed with water almost every episode, and it takes the patience of a true saint to get him into a bathtub.

Fire (Pyrophobia)

• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Appa the Flying Bison grows a fear of fire in the episode "Appa's Lost Days".
• In Batman: The Animated Series episode "Torch Song", singer Cassidy developed a fear of fire after her ordeal with her ex-boyfriend-turned-supervillain Firefly.
• Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, despite being turned into a candlestick holder. He's made of wax. In fact, at one point in the film he's in severe danger of being melted because of somebody sticking a burning torch in his face.
• Shere Khan from The Jungle Book (1967). At the end of the film, Mowgli chases him away by burning off his tail. Unfortunately, it's revealed in the sequel that burning off Khan's tail actually made him even angrier...
• Transformers: Armada: Hot Shot, who was forced to leave a friend behind in a fire because he'd passed out from the heat.
• In a the second part of a two-part Cliffhanger episode of King of the Hill, Hank was almost killed when Buckley blew up the Megalo Mart after mishandling a propane tank, and he became deathly afraid of propane as a result, a very bad handicap for someone like him who has made a career out of selling it. Fortunately, he managed to get over it.
• Gor-illa is shown to have a crippling fear of forest fires in the Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys episode "Mind Over Monkey".

Darkness (Nyctophobia)

• One of Chuckie's top 3 fears on Rugrats.
  Chuckie: This isn't just regular-plain-old scary, Tommy. This is THE DARK!
• Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender was born stone blind so she only has theoretical knowledge of what darkness and/or it's absence even is. However her tremorsense is rendered useless when she is not in contact with earth, stone, or metal (as well as if the soles of her feet are covered or damaged) and she does not like such situations at all.
• In SilverHawks, Timestopper is terrified of the dark. In his case, it's because he can only use his time-freezing powers in the light, and he's nothing but a scrawny 14-year-old kid without them.
• Bubbles of The Powerpuff Girls, which Him uses torment her in the "What Do They Fear?" Episode.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Sonya, the new recruit in the "Operation: T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G." is so afraid of the dark that when Father's Mooks threten to lock her up in a dark closet, her protests turn to screams, until she finally goes ballistic, unleashing an angry and monstrous personality who mercilessly beats up her captors even as they beg for mercy. (The fight happened off-screen, but the end result of the Curb-Stomp Battle shows both Mooks, who are adults more than twice her size, badly bruised, with black eyes and knocked out teeth.)
  Sonya: (Coyly, as she stands on the beaten-up mooks) "I'm afraid of the dark."
• Despite being a tough army cadet, Brick from Total Drama is afraid of the dark. Naturally, his archenemy and resident bully Jo constantly ridicules him for it.
• Tony Clark of The Amazing Spiez!.
• Zaptor, Volectro, and Nurp from Mixels. While the latter is a young baby, the former two are electric-based in their abilities.
• Strawberry Shortcake: If you see the episode "Ginger Snap's No-light Night of Fright" from the 2003 series, Ginger Snap hates and fears the darkness to the point of wanting to miss out on a campout she was invited to, so she brings lots of lights to navigate the dark forest when she gets dragooned.
• A variation exists in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go. SPRX-77 loves being a fighter pilot, so his greatest fear is losing his eyesight, which is essential for a pilot.

Ghosts (Phasmophobia)

• Shaggy and Scooby-Doo.
• In Inspector Gadget, similar to the Scooby-Doo "Velma too afraid of clowns to solve the case" example below, Penny and Brain are at first too afraid of ghosts to investigate MAD's base (and keep Gadget out of trouble) in "The Haunted Castle. Gadget, who doesn't share this fear, is actually pretty competent (proving he's not always Too Dumb to Live) throughout the whole episode — though, thanks to Gadget actually showing good parenting for once (part of that whole aforementioned "competence" bit), Penny quickly gets over her fear, and does her usual investigations herself. Still, the episode somewhat breaks type by having both Penny and Gadget solving the case.
• Yoshi is afraid of ghosts in the Super Mario World cartoon, a Hand Wave of his refusing to enter ghost houses in the actual game.
• Scootaloo in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic confesses to Rainbow Dash that she is afraid of ghost stories but did not want to admit it sooner for fear that she'd look uncool in front of her idol.
• Numbuh Three in Codename: Kids Next Door is afraid of the hamster ghosts that show up in Operation: G.H.O.S.T. (after she starts mourning too long over the death of one of the team's power-providing hamsters) but she does think they're cute.
• Strawberry Shortcake from the 2021 Strawberry Shortcake series has a fear of ghosts, which the Mean Berries use to their advantage so she would leave the Berryworks in "Ghost of Cupcakes Past" with a Totem Pole Trench. It returns in "The House on Scary Berry Lane" when she has to deliver to a haunted house, but this time Raspberry is helping her through it. It's a major subplot in "The Beast of Berry Bog", where she's hesitant to confront the titular monster, and has to learn to overcome her fear.
• Sonic Boom: Dr. Eggman is absolutely terrified of ghosts. Interestingly, there's no in-universe proof of ghosts even existing in this series (unlike the main game series, where they are occasionally enemies).
• The Hacker from Cyberchase becomes a stuttering mess at the sign of ghosts and flees like mad at the sight of them. Particularly, by the ghost of Ivanka the Terrible. There was even a few occasions the Cyber Squad exploited Hacker's fear of ghosts to get him to leave.

Clowns (Coulrophobia)

• Ben in Ben 10. He faced his fear eventually.
  • Made worse when the Monster of the Week is a supernatural clown called Zombozo.
• Wakko Warner in Animaniacs. In Wakko's case, the clowns are the ones who will get the worst out of it. Mr. Plotz also has this phobia.

''A clown is my friend. A clown will not bite me and throw me in the basement. A clown is not a big spider.

• Billy of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy thinks clowns are plotting to "DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL!" Likewise, in ''Big Boogey Adventure, Billy's given a spider clown mailman as a hybridization of all his fears courtesy of Horror's Hand. Since Billy must battle his own demons before touching the Hand, Mandy's laser rifle has no effect on said aberration.
• The Simpsons: Bart Simpson suffered a temporary case of this when he was younger, no thanks to the badly-crafted clown bed that Homer made for him. Origin of the phrase, "Can't sleep, clown will eat me."
  "If you were to die before you sleep... HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!"
  • Kinda doubles as an Ironic Fear, as he is a fan of Krusty the Klown.
• Tino from The Weekenders had been afraid of clowns for a long time and just so happened to face his fear the week that... 1. They saw a movie titled Mutant Clowns from the Hollow Earth 2. The Carnival was in town 3. Tino notices the arcade entrance has a clown face 4. The pizza place had a clown theme and 5. There were a bunch of clowns around (because there's a clown convention in town).
  "Mutant clowns from the Hollow Earth! They're real!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"
• Dick Daring from The Replacements.
• Velma Dinkley in What's New, Scooby-Doo? at least due to a clown shredding her encyclopedia present on her birthday when she was little (He thought it was just a boring gift someone got her, not realizing she's a bookworm). A Monster Clown showing up caused her to swap personalities with Shaggy (who was concentrating on winning a mini golf contest so he went all Velma-esque). They reverted eventually.
• Chuckie from Rugrats, although they come second to "the guy on the oatmeal box." One episode reveals that Didi is also afraid of clowns as she screams at one to get away from her at a carnival. The sequel series All Grown Up! reveals that Chuckie retains his fear of clowns well into his preadolescence. Which is pretty interesting, considering the fact that Chuckie has gotten over most of his other phobias by this point.
• Caillou's sister Rosie on Caillou, but Caillou helps her to get over it.
• In an episode of The Fairly OddParents!, Timmy admitted to being afraid of clowns.
• Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown was revealed by one of the big bads to be afraid of clowns, complete with a visual aid. To be fair, they looked like monster clowns.
• Toaster, from The Brave Little Toaster, for some reason is actually afraid of a Monster Clown firefighter as revealed in a Nightmare Sequence he had about halfway through the film. For his other fear, see above.
• Creepie from Growing Up Creepie is terrified of clowns. This being the girl that lives with bugs and relaxes in a graveyard.
• Marc Clark of The Amazing Spiez!. Unlike his fear of heights, it's never clarified if he ever gets over it.
• Post-Movie SpongeBob SquarePants seems to act this way towards clowns. He gathered the entire city of Bikini Bottom to help rescue Sandy from the Rodeo simply because "There are clowns there!"
• Lilo in Lilo & Stitch: The Series reveals this is one of her fears in the Halloween episode. Rather odd considering her love of monster movies.
• An episode of Camp Lazlo revealed that the titular monkey was afraid of clowns due to being scared by one on his fourth birthday. Of course, the problem is that Scoutmaster Lumpus has decided that every day at Camp Kidney will be Clown Day.
• Spud in American Dragon: Jake Long, due to an incident involving a Clowny McHonk-Honk parade balloon when he was 5.
  Spud: Me, 12 trombonists, and the Cable Access weather lady haven't been the same since.

Other Phobias

• The Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "This Won't Hurt an Ed" reveals that Kevin has belonephobia (Afraid of Needles). Eddy uses that to his advantage.
• Teen Titans:
  • A villain named Dr Light developed a severe phobia. A fear of Raven.
  • Gnarrk, a Neanderthal, was exposed to the modern world. This left him with a severe technophobia (fear of technology) which remained with him until his meeting with the Teen Titans.
• The Total Drama
  • The episode "Phobia Factor" delved into the phobias of every cast member of Island (2007). Even tough guy Duncan revealed his secret fear: cardboard cutouts of Celine Dion.
  • Jasmine of the Pahkitew Island season is extremely claustrophobic and loses her normal sense of confidence when she is forced to do some spelunking as part of one of the challenges.
  • Various examples from Island (2023)
    • Chase is stated to be afraid of catapult rides, being the only dare he has ever chickened out of in his life.
    • Caleb is afraid of both snakes and clowns, so one challenge has him face both fears at the same time in the form of a snake dressed as a clown.
    • Priya's biggest fears are thunder and lightning.
    • Julia is terrified of being surrounded by old people, as she thinks of them as a reminder for the "young and beautiful" that their good looks will not last forever.
    • Wayne has two: the first is Raj playing for a different team, and the second is his own hockey team's mascot. He does manage to get over both of his fears however.
• In The Replacements, Agent K suffers from crippling stage fright.
• Chuckie of Rugrats is anxious about many things; his fears include clowns, bunnies, green jello, shoes, and the guy on the oatmeal box. Oh, and Angelica, but all the babies are afraid of her.
• The Simpsons:
  • Homer Simpson is shown to have a crippling fear of sock puppets in the episode "Fear of Flying". Also, cobras!!
  • Due to some experiments conducted by Lisa, Bart once froze in fear when asked to get the cupcakes.
• The titular character on Jimmy Two-Shoes is afraid of pickles.
• Mandy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is afraid of professional figure skaters (although she insists she just "doesn't trust the way they spin"). Billy confronts her on this fact when she says his fear of clowns (see above) is stupid. (And frankly, he kinda has a point...) Horror's Hand in Big Boogey Adventure conjures up something worse for her: a future Mandy that is obese, mirthful, and married to Irwin. Mandy is scared shitless.
  • Jack O'Lantern, an antagonist of a Halloween special, is terrified of knights since he was killed by one centuries ago. When he thinks that knight has returned for him, he's too terrified to do anything, despite having Grim's Scythe in hand.
• In Metalocalypse, Toki is afraid of bicentennial quarters.
• Moral Orel has Clay's mother fearing for the word "dead", including the words with the -ded suffix.
• Lydia's father in the Beetlejuice cartoon is afraid of...well, everything.
  • In the episode “Generally Hysterical Hospital” it’s revealed that Lydia herself is afraid of hospitals. She gets over it by the end, though.
• In The Rescuers, the extremely superstitious Bernard is afraid of the number 13. He's also afraid of flying.
• In Transformers: Prime, all the robots, but particularly Bulkhead, are afraid of scraplets, whipping out their weapons at the sight of one. But considering they're essentially the robot equivalent of flying piranha, it's not an irrational fear.
• Robot Chicken brings us a child who is an obvious parody of Indiana Jones (complete with whip and boulder chase sequence), who harbors a hatred of milkshakes.
• Tantor from The Legend of Tarzan has pantophobia ("fear of everything").
• King of the Hill:
  • In the same episode that showed Hank's fear of bats, Bill was claimed to have a fear of balloons.
  • Dale Gribble is afraid of ventriloquist dummies, due to his father scaring him with one as a child.
• Futurama:
  • Bender reveals that he's afraid of can openers, claiming that one killed his father. This fear proves to be justified when a can opener almost leaves him permanently paralyzed.
  • Fry appears to have a fear of parade size balloons...until quickly gotten over it by Bender.
• In an episode of Popples, Billy says he is afraid of the dentist.
• In addition to clowns, Timmy Turner is creeped out by bare feet. Which he may have developed from rubbing his grandma's feet.
  It burns!
• Vendetta from Making Fiends has a hatred of music (melophobia). There's a big zig-zag in how extreme it is; she hates Charlotte's singing, but sometimes she will sing herself (and very badly). In the last three episodes of the web series, she seems to be traumatized by music playing from a card, firing her assistant Grudge because it keeps playing when he burps. When her new assistant Rubella gives her a musical bear, Vendetta falls to the ground writhing in pain. In the TV series, she seems to hate music mostly because it's happy and she hates happy things.
• Archer: Sterling Archer has three great fears. Two of them are alligators and crocodiles. The third? Brain aneurysms, because they strike anywhere, without warning. He also has an intense distrust/hatred of cyborgs that borders on a phobia, due to what he believes is the inevitability of the robot uprising.
• Wade Duck on U.S. Acres is afraid of 614 things.
• Stanley Straines from Staines Down Drains has a phobia about dirt and germs. It should be noted that most episodes are set in a sewer.
• In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown claims to have pantophobia (the fear of everything).
• Trina Riffin from Grojband has automatonophobia (the fear of puppets) ever since she was a child.
• The last season of Superfriends had an episode where Scarecrow discovers Batman has a fear of Crime Alley. Scarecrow doesn't know why he's afraid of it (it's where Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered), but since he's never seen Batman show fear of anything else before, he's quick to take advantage of it.
• In My Gym Partner's a Monkey, Principal Pixiefrog is paranoid about lawsuits. (Not surprising, as his school is clearly not up to code.)
• Blossom's worst fear on The Powerpuff Girls is failure — understandable, given that she's The Leader who's most proud of her intelligence.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • Numbuh Four appears to have hemophobia (fear of blood) in "Operation: SAFETY", freaking out when he thinks his baby brother Joey is bleeding (even though it's just ketchup) and fainting when he sees that he has real blood on his knee.
• My Little Pony (G3): Thistle Whistle, a Pegasus, is afraid of clouds. (For extra irony, at one point she talks about it to Cloud Climber.)
• In the Gravity Falls episode "Little Gift Shop of Horrors", Mabel is revealed to have an irrational fear of stop-motion animation.
  Mabel: The Cyclops! Its face is made of nightmares!
• Lee Clark of The Amazing Spiez! is claustrophobic; naturally he hates being shut up in glass containers (which happens a lot).
• Skrubz from Mixels is terrified of medical procedures. Unfortunately, he happens to be part of the Medix tribe.
• In the Fangbone! episode "The Cavity Of Terror", it's revealed that Fangbone is afraid of dentists (or, as they're known on Skullbania, "Toothsmiths").
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Wormy", Sponge and Pat are afraid of butterflies. Having never seen one and not knowing how they work, they mistake one for some kind of monster that ate Sandy's pet caterpillar Wormy, not realizing that the butterfly is Wormy.
  • "Fear of a Krabby Patty": SpongeBob's fear of Krabby Patties after working too much.
• For some reason, in Will You Be My Lemontine? from the 2021 Strawberry Shortcake series, the mechanic, Lemon, hates the colour pink, which led to Sweetie Pie's Day^note Valentine's Day becoming her least favourite holiday.
• Aside from Spydor and Gor-illa's fears listed under the Dogs and Fire sections, the Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys episode "Mind Over Monkey" reveals that Dr. Splitz' split personality Splitzy is afraid of being locked in a cage, Shao Lin is afraid of being forcefully taken from her loved ones, and Captain Simian is afraid of letting his team down.
• Milo Murphy's Law: Due to having been a Walking Disaster Area his whole life, Milo is extremely nonchalant in most dangerous situations, but has a fear of Chinese finger traps (though he got over it once Melissa showed him how they work).
• Another fear that Twilight Sparkle of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has is a fear of quesadillas. Apparently, they're just too cheesy.
• Catflap from Gasp! is a triskaidekaphobe; i.e. afraid of Friday the 13th. In "Lucky Guppy!", Gasp discovers this and he and the pets look for a lucky charm to get her through it.
• In one episode of Static Shock we learn that Hotstreak is terrified of hospitals, due to an incident that left him hospitalized for two years when he was a kid.
• DuckTales (2017): According to "The Richest Duck in the World", Della Duck is terrified of mirrors. This is because, desperate for the sight of another person, she initiated a staring contest for three weeks with her reflection. She doesn't want to look at another mirror because she doesn't want to see her.
• An episode of 6teen featured a blood drive at the mall. All of the main characters agree to donate, but Jonsey chickens out. At first, the friends wonder if Jonsey's Afraid of Needles, but then realize he's afraid of the sight of blood (hemophobia) when he freaks out at seeing Nikki's blister bleed.
• Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City:
  • Lemon Meringue has Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, and refuses to do anything that involves talking to a crowd. In “All About Lemon”, she can barely utter a single word during her interview and has to rely on Strawberry to speak for her.
  • Huckleberry Pie has Samhainophobia, and can barely function during Fright-Fall. In "The Beast of Berry Bog", it gets to the point where simply wearing a "costume" (literally just fake eyebrows) causes him to fear he'll suffer a Death of Personality.
  • “Night of the Sweet Tooth Fairy” reveals Blueberry Muffin has Dontineraiphobia, aka the fear of the Sweet Tooth Fairy^note basically just the tooth fairy, but instead of money they place candy under your pillow. As she puts it, there’s nothing “sweet” about a magical being who breaks into your house while you’re sleeping and steals your teeth. Blueberry manages to conquer her fear by the end, but it’s ambiguous if this is because she actually met the Sweet Tooth Fairy and learned she’s not that bad, or because she met Lime’s dad trying to put the candy under Lime’s pillow and learned the fairy wasn’t real.

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