While visiting family in Italy, actor Steve Buscemi is pursued by a Fire Beast, which chases him right into the path of the Mystery Machine, leading them to team up to unmask the culprit.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Steve tries to correct Shaggy and Scooby's pronunciation of his surname, saying that it's "Boo-sem-ee", not "Boo-shem-ee." They don't get it. After a couple attempts, he gives up, saying that the mispronunciation makes him wonder if he's saying it incorrectly.
- Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: Steve Buscemi has his hands full trying to explain to people that he's really a nice guy in real life and that he's not at all like the villains he plays in films. He establishes his nice guy credentials towards the end by rescuing a chipmunk from a fire even though he had a fear of chipmunks.
- Chekhov's Gunman: While accompanying him for breakfast, the gang meets Steve's cousin, Nana, who is older and plays a more grandmotherly role to everyone. She turns out to be the Fire Beast.
- Engineered Heroics: Nana explains that she was tired of seeing everyone consider "Stevie" a villain and took up the "Fire Beast" identity so that he could use his firefighting experience to save the day.
- Epiphany Therapy: Subverted; Steve has a fear of chipmunks, and in many stories being forced to overcome his phobia to rescue a chipmunk from a burning tree would cause it to fade. However, when he comes out of the smoke carrying the chipmunk, he's just as wound up as before and quickly palms it off on Daphne.
- Face Your Fears: In an early gag, Steve jumps into Shaggy's arms upon seeing a chipmunk because he finds them freaky. After he and the gang have captured the Fire Beast, Velma sees a tree on fire and Daphne points out a chipmunk trapped on one of its branches. Steve steels himself and rescues it.
- Foreshadowing: Multiple things hint that Nana is the Fire Beast before she's unmasked.
- The Fire Monster keeps stalking Steve everywhere and it doesn't harm him even when he's down and it's burning his photos. Nana would know his itinerary and wouldn't want to hurt him.
- Nana's secret recipe for spaghetti includes garlic olive oil. Daphne finds garlic olive oil in the warehouse.
- When the Fire Beast attacks the Steve Buscemi exhibit, it destroys all the photos of Steve's villainous roles, but leaves one from Nice Guys of Baltimore untouched. That was Nana's favorite of Steve's movies because it allowed him to be the nice boy she's familiar with rather than the creepy villain everyone thinks he is.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Steve Buscemi gets spooked by a chipmunk while on a stakeout and later has to save it from a fire. However, there are no chipmunks in Sicily.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: When the Fire Monster appears in the opening, Steve exclaims in dismay about it having found him again. Later, Velma confirms that the monster has been following Steve around.
- Red Herring:
- Steve's cousin Paolo says that he should have been the movie star instead of Steve and expresses a wish for his career to go down in flames. He isn't the culprit.
- An older man confronts Steve over his grandfather stiffing him for a ticket to America back in the 1930s, puts a curse on him, and spits at him. He isn't the Fire Beast either.
- Running Gag: Steve keeps meeting people who mistake him for the bad guys he portrays in movies. Even after helping defeat the Fire Monster, saving a chipmunk despite his phobia of them, and dedicating a new fire house, he can't manage to convince people that those are roles, not his personality.
- Running Over the Plot: The gang first meet Steve and find out about his problem with the Fire Beast when the monster chases him into the Mystery Machine's path. Luckily, the van has good brakes.
- Spaghetti Kiss: Shaggy and Scooby accidentally "kiss" while eating the same noodle during the Buscemi family gathering. They promptly fight over the spaghetti.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Nana had enough of everybody thinking Steve was the villains he played in his movies, so she posed as the Fire Monster of Mount Etna to show everyone he was actually a hero.
- You Meddling Kids: Inverted; after Nana is unmasked, she thanks the gang for helping her prove that "Stevie" is a hero and not a terrible criminal, saying that she couldn't have done it without them.
