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Why Did It Have To Be Snakes / Live-Action TV

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Snakes (ophidiophobia), Reptiles (herpetophobia)
  • An early episode of Adam-12 saw Malloy and Reed approach every white 1958 Ford convertible with trepidation ... since a stolen boa constrictor might be hidden in the trunk of one of them.
  • Terrorist Kelly Peyton on Alias is terrified of snakes and only gives important information to the CIA under interrogation when they threaten her with one. Later when they need more information, they simply threaten to get the snake again and a terrified Kelly tells them what they want to know.
  • Amen had an episode where Deacon Frye went to a therapist specifically to overcome this.
  • Flabber showed it once in Beetleborgs.
  • Subverted in The Big Bang Theory episode "The Good Guy Fluctuation". Sheldon hides a live snake in Raj's desk drawer, hoping to scare him. It turns out Raj is not afraid of snakes at all; when he finds the snake, he immediately picks it up and starts talking to it in a cutesy voice about taking it to the biology lab for "some nice yummy mice."
  • Jaime Sommers in The Bionic Woman, which is exploited in several episodes throughout the series.
  • Brennan in Bones. It goes back and forth, as she handles a snake in one episode. Later, they do some Lampshade Hanging regarding the slip, with her asking "Why am I only afraid of snakes when Booth is not around to be jumped upon?"
  • An episode of COPS (1989) shows two policemen afraid to respond to a call from a resident who found a snake in his closet. The guy from animal control, on the other hand, has snake tattoos and can't believe the resident didn't want to keep such a pretty snake.
    • This scenario also appeared in an episode of Animal Cops: Miami. Animal Control had no problem with what was a small and non-poisonous snake... but the snake was found in Little Haiti; all the residents there thought the snake was bad luck since it was considered a symbol of Voodoo worship.
  • On an episode of The Cosby Show, Rudy freaked out after seeing a small garter snake in the basement. Clair told her to calm down, saying she and Cliff would take care of it... Then, once she and Cliff were alone, she freaked out even more than Rudy had, and was on edge the entire episode. (At the end, when they caught it, Rudy actually thought it was "cute".)
  • Bulldog from Frasier has a fear of lizards, which Frasier tries to take advantage of after being a victim of one too many of Bulldog's pranks. He puts a lizard in a box, intending to surprise Bulldog with it during his show, of course this goes horribly wrong when Frasier's boss Kate becomes the unintended victim instead and it bites her finger off (thankfully, she was able to have the finger restored in time).
  • In Harrow, Harrow is afraid of lizards. This becomes especially relevant in "Hic Sunt Dracones" ("Here be Dragons") where the case starts with a human arm found inside a crocodile, and later involves a wildlife smuggler with a boat full of exotic lizards.
  • On Home Improvement Tim becomes agitated when he learns that a harmless garden snake is somewhere in his house.
  • Eiji of Kamen Rider OOO mistakes the Eel Can-droids as snakes on first glance.
  • Murdoc from MacGyver.
  • In Manimal, Jonathan Chase becomes a large python for Ty to use as a rope to rescue Brooke, who states 'don't you remember, I hate snakes,' and 'why couldn't you become something else?' This seemed to be intended to reference Indiana Jones' aversion to snakes from Raiders of the Lost Ark, which had been released two years earlier.
  • Tory Belleci from MythBusters has admitted to a fear of snakes. Naturally, this has been taken advantage of on the show.
  • Dave Lister from Red Dwarf as shown by “Polymorph” is totally freaked out by snakes when the titular Voluntary Shapeshifter becomes a anaconda, snakes are Lister’s “all-time second-worst fear”. His worst fear being a 6-foot Xenomorph Xerox with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, which Polymorph naturally becomes after the anaconda.
  • Wayne of Swamp Loggers expresses great unease about snakes. One could wonder about his choice of job.
  • Subverted with Agent Scully on The X-Files. In "One Breath", her mother tells a story how she felt guilty for shooting a snake with her new BB gun. Although deathly afraid of snakes, she held the snake and it died in her hands, which is very weird as people with this phobia are grossed out with only pictures of snakes. When Mulder and Scully investigate cases involving snakes, she isn't exactly on edge ("Die Hand die Verletzt") and she even gets a tattoo of a snake eating its own tail in "Never Again". On the other hand, there are lots of snakes in "Signs and Wonders", but even Mulder who doesn't suffer from this phobia is very nervous around them.

Spiders (arachnophobia)

  • Jim from According to Jim is terrified of spiders.
  • In The Ark (2023), Lt. Brice has a great fear of spiders, which makes things not so fun for him when the only cure for his terminal disease involves sticking his hand in a spider terrarium and waiting for them to bite him.
  • Dr. Camille Saroyan on Bones freaks out briefly when a swarm of baby spiders start emerging from a crack in a block of clay that the skeleton-of-the-week is embedded in. Later, she also freaks out when Hodgins brings a gun into the lab that hasn’t been used in a while and spiders are living in it. Several escape and one even gets in her office. She ends up furious at Hodgins.
    • Also Agent Aubrey. He got very nervous running into one at a scene in a fun house.
  • The Brittas Empire: According to "That Creeping Feeling", Carole has a fear of spiders, which comes as a deadly tarantula is roaming the centre, at one point even briefly hanging on her back unbeknownst to her.
  • Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as we learn in "Nightmares." Naturally, Xander pokes fun at this.
  • In Charmed, Piper is afraid of tarantulas. This tends to come up whenever recurring villain Barbas (the demon of fear) puts his hand in...
  • CSI: NY: In one episode where they're searching Central Park at night, Don Flack reveals to Danny Messer that he's afraid of black widow spiders since they're deadly. Danny explains to him that they can make you very sick but not to the point of death, and ribs his friend about it.
  • While this was never explored further on the show (unlike his fear of heights and needles), Logan Cale from Dark Angel has admitted at one point that he doesn't like spiders.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "Planet of the Spiders": The Third Doctor has to face his worst fear — a giant psychic spider. She's a homicidal alien despot, but the writer of the script, Robert Sloman, was a terrible arachnophobe and the similarity to arachnophobia was very intentional.
    • "Arachnids in the UK": There are overly-large spiders loose in Sheffield, and both companion Ryan and Corrupt Corporate Executive Robertson are explicitly noted to be arachnophobic. Graham says he's not a fan of them either.
  • Ross from Friends has a great fear of spiders, Rachel has a fear of swings so in order to sit on one she insists Ross hold a spider in his hand while she goes on the swing. Ross finds this very unfair:
    Oh, yeah, that’s the same, I am sure there are thirty different species of poisonous swings!
  • This is one of Max Blum's three biggest phobias in Happy Endings.
  • Barney from How I Met Your Mother ran out of the room in a panic when Robin spotted a spider on the floor in one episode.
  • Jessie: In the episode "What A Steal," Jessie goes a date with a guy and learns that he has a fear of spiders. After he is revealed to be a criminal planning to the Rosses' penthouse with the help of his sister whom Ravi befriended at a MENSA meeting, Jessie employs this fear to keep both of the burglars at bay for the police to arrive.
  • Hal from Malcolm in the Middle in one episode an animal trainer uses him as a volunteer, he ends up using a tarantula Hal is terrified it ends up biting him because he spooked it.
  • Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: Phryne Fisher is shown to be arachnophobic (a trait not shared by her literary version) in "Game, Set and Murder." Jack is able to get her to remove herself from his desk by bringing out the spider in a jar he had collected as evidence earlier.
  • Adam Savage of MythBusters although in the Ultimate MythBuster special, Adam said his experience in the "Daddy Long-Legs" myth (arm stuck in a tube of spiders until one finally bit him) had gotten him over this fear.
    • Grant Imahara is also arachnophobic. And he gets the same type of "treatment" that Adam got...
  • Schmidt from New Girl is dreadfully afraid of spiders, and becomes increasingly paranoid when he spots one in the loft.
  • April from Parks and Recreation has that arachnophobia thing.
  • Power Rangers:
    • Zack the Black Ranger from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, among other things like snakes and bugs.
    • Shane the Red Ranger from Power Rangers Ninja Storm. First mentioned by Tori to prove it's really her and not her evil clone, it turns up later in a surprisingly subtle fashion - a flashback of kid-Shane rescuing an alien ball of light from a spider-web.
    • Nate of Power Rangers Beast Morphers is terrified of spiders. A few episodes deal with him facing one in some form. Unlike Devon's fear of dogs, which was brought about by Evox's tampering, Nate's fear is natural.
  • Joanie Hanson in Providence.
  • Red Dwarf:
    • In “Better Than Life” Arnold Rimmer’s worst fear is a tarantula crawling inside his trousers, a fear which is brought to life due to Rimmer’s own brain Refusing Paradise and the idea of good things happening to him.
    • Lister seems to have arachnophobia too and is subjected to it twice, first in “Terrorform” when Holly warns him about a spider-like creature comings onboard (in actuality Kryten’s hand) and it crawls up his legs through his underpants. Later in “Demons and Angels” his Evil Twin puts a Mind-Control Device on him and forces him to snack on a live tarantula.
    • Cat has this fear too as seen in the aforementioned scene in “Terrorform” and they communicate their panic through a computer.
    Cat: So what's the problem? Hey, you OK? You look tense.
    Lister: (Typing) > HELP > Something is crawling up my leg. I think it's a taranshula
    Cat: You're playing that dumb adventure game.
    Lister: > It's in my boxers. It's making a nest
    Cat: Then buy a potion from Gandalf, the master wizard. That's what I usually do.
    Lister: > I'm SERIOUS.
    Cat:[looks down, then looks up again, a rather tense expression on his face] (Typing also) > It has an eye the size of a meatball.
    Lister: > Kill it.
    Cat: > How?
    Lister: > I can't think straight. I've got a taranshula with an eye the size of a meatball setting up home in my joy department. Help me.
    Cat: > I'm scared.
    Lister: > YOU'RE scared? How d'you think I feel?
  • Budnick in Salute Your Shorts. The only thing he's afraid of.
  • Hank from Sirens (US) is afraid of spiders. He kept it a secret for years, because he knew that Johnny would give him shit over it. And indeed, as soon as Johnny found out, he proceeded to give him shit.
  • Lisa Landry from Sister, Sister.
  • When Chad Dylan Cooper claims he fears nothing in one episode of Sonny with a Chance, Sonny contradicts him by mentioning that he's afraid of spiders (and heights), though apparently not little ones.
  • Chief O'Brien once admitted to a fear of spiders in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in order to sympathize with Lieutenant Barclay's transporter phobia (see "Various Phobias" below), and tells Barclay about a time when a broken reactor was infested with spiders and he was the only person in the area with the ability to fix it. He admits that, "It was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but I got through it", and that his fear became less intense after that. By the time he tells this story, he's gotten to the point where he owns a pet tarantula.
    • In response to the story, Barclay claims not to be afraid of spiders, but his reaction when he meets the aforementioned pet tarantula suggests this may not be entirely accurate. This becomes truly ironic when, in the season 7 episode "Genesis", he starts de-evolving into a spider.
  • Bill Miller on Still Standing.
  • Eric Forman in That '70s Show, as we find out in the episode "Young Man Blues".

Insects (entomophobia)

  • Cordelia from Angel is no fan of bugs, cockroaches in particular and seeing a infestation of them in her first low rent LA apartment is more than enough incentive to leave and she happily picks even a haunted apartment over the one with cockroaches. Sadly for Cordy, she lives in a universe where there’s 6-foot demon cockroaches scuttling around and naturally encounters them in a later episode.
  • Arrowverse:
    • Felicity Smoak from Arrow is freaked out by bugs, and had to stop Ray from talking about cockroaches.
    • Cisco Ramon from The Flash (2014) cannot stand bees, as we learn in the episode "All Star-Team Up" when the team has to face killer robotic bees.
  • Raj from The Big Bang Theory is afraid of insects. In "The Jiminy Conjecture", he freaks out when the guys visit an entomologist's lab; it's dark and there are containers of insects everywhere and mounted insects on the walls.
  • Downplayed but Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer develops a fear of insects after nearly getting raped and eaten a mantis lady and later is attacked by a doors salesman who can deform into a swarm of bugs. On the second occasion an irate Cordelia (see above) questions if he’s a kind of demon bug magnet.
  • Jenny on Call the Midwife. This is a problem because she works in the East End, so there are bugs everywhere. Possibly justified in that she has asthma.
  • Nick Stokes from CSI displayed something of an ant phobia after being buried alive and covered in red ants, though it's not popped up again.
  • Calleigh Duquesne from CSI: Miami revealed to Eric Delko in one episode that she was afraid of ants when he wanted her to Dumpster Dive for evidence that was covered in them. She agreed to "take their next floater" if he did it instead.
  • Niles Crane from Frasier has a very severe form of this. He often believes that insects are bigger than they are, he has carried a ridiculous amount of bug repellent with him on more than one occasion, and, while Frasier insists that he should see a therapist, he never does.note 
    • Ironically enough, Frasier himself used to have this, as in an episode of Cheers, he admitted that he had a thing about insects. By the time of Frasier though, he seemed to have long since gotten over this, while Niles (see above) still has a bug phobia that's even worse than Frasier's was.
  • Kenan & Kel: Kenan's dad is afraid of ladybugs.
  • Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Tim doesn't like insects, being grossed out by the Endoswarmers' shed shells when he goes to the Kazakhstan abandoned power plant where the creatures hatched 56 years ago.
  • In the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Murdochphobia", Murdoch admits he has a fear of butterflies. He says it's because their chaotic behaviour unsettles him, but he later realises he associates them with his mother's death.
  • Bees (apiphobia), Wasps, Hornets, Yellowjackets (sphecksophobia) — Adam Savage from MythBusters.
  • In a throwaway line, Jack O'Neill from Stargate SG-1 mentions that he has an insane aversion to bugs, right when the team is about to face a group of robotic bugs called the replicators.
  • Richard Hammond from Top Gear, if the Bolivia special is to be believed.

Mice & Rats (musophobia)

  • Gunn from Angel. First mentioned in S3's "Heartthrob", his phobia gets explicit illustration in S4, when the coming apocalypse causes a house's walls to fill with rats. There’s also some Enforced Method Acting going on in that scene as J. August Richards really is terrified of rats, so the scene had be shortened for the poor guy to cope.
  • In the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode "The Tale Of Watcher's Woods", a girl is captured by three witches and put in a wooden cage. One witch asks her if she'd like to "play with some rodents" and proceeds to put a bucket of rats into the cage with the girl, who happens to be terrified of rats. The girl then freaks out and says: "Why did it have to be rats?!"
  • The Brady Bunch: Alice is revealed to be afraid of mice in "The Impractical Joker" after seeing a small, white mouse running loose in the house. The mouse was on loan to high school freshman Greg for a science project, and Jan – playing up her one-episode practical joking side – lets the mouse loose.
  • The Brittas Empire: In "Brussels Calling", it is revealed that Carole has a fear of rats. Unfortunately for her, this comes as the centre faces a rat infestation, and she ends up learning that her young son Ben is capable of luring rats near him with his tin whistle playing after the rats start coming into reception and in front of her.
  • In Community episode "Environmental Science", Troy and rats, with Troy even referencing the Trope Namer.
  • Doc Robbins from CSI, who yells and screams and generally stands there scared to death when a rat launches itself out of a body on his table. Grissom is left to chase it and watch it escape.
  • Topher in Dollhouse which Dr. Saunders/Whiskey takes advantage of.
  • Knit Knots on Imagination Movers seems to be at least somewhat afraid of Warehouse Mouse, telling the Movers to keep the "furry, woodland creature" away from him.
  • I've Got a Secret: The first celebrity guest, Boris Karloff, reportedly had a rather mundane secret: "I'm afraid of mice." It wasn't long before the celebrity guests – at least during the CBS run – had more elaborate secrets to share.
  • Kenan & Kel: Kenan freaks out at the sight of a rat in his workplace. Kel, on the other hand, likes the "cute furry little mouse" Wendell.
  • The warden in one episode of The Mentalist is afraid of mice/rats. What does Jane do? He uses a muffin and some other tools to catch a mouse/rat, and as part of his plan to break out of jail, essentially scares the crap out of the warden so he won't stop him.
  • Gary from Miranda (2009) is scared of mice, and jumps onto a chair when told there's one in Miranda's flat.
  • Modern Family: Mice for Mitchell.
  • Tony on NCIS has admitted that he quite liked rats, before his bout with the plague. Since rats usually carry the plague... you get the idea.
  • Richard Mayhew in Neverwhere. At the beginning of the pilot episode, Richard talks about himself including his dislike of rats, blood, and heights. He encounters all three.
  • The Noddy Shop has a Running Gag where Agatha uses her fear of mice as an excuse for something bad happening. One episode, "The Fish Story" had her dressing as a cat to try to chase down "mice" that took a ring.
  • Eric Forman from That '70s Show is afraid of rats, as seen in the episode "The Best Christmas Ever".

Bats (chiroptophobia)

  • Batwoman (2019). Played for Dramatic Irony when it's revealed that Ryan Wilder has this phobia despite being the new Batwoman. Naturally the episode where she reveals this involves Alice attacking Gotham with a swarm of infected bats.
  • Mr Smoketoomuch in Monty Python's Flying Circus gained his odd speech impediment (pronouncing the letter "C" as "B") after being attacked by a Siamese bat. No, not a cat — a Siamese bat (they're more dangerous).
  • Bonita Flamingo has a fear of them in The Noddy Shop.
  • It's implied in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Chains of Commanding" that Worf has a fear of bats.

Cats (ailurophobia)

  • Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica (who has one or two issues with snakes, as well).
  • Ed in Flashpoint, at least according to Greg. Ed claims it was just one cat and "it was mean" a point which Spike (hilariously) backs up.
  • Rei Tachibana/Dyna Pink from Kagaku Sentai Dynaman. The mere sight of a cat just freaks her out and she's rendered mostly incapable of fighting a cat monster, and it gets worse when said cat monster just transform the Mooks into cat statues. Ironically, she wants to develop a tool to communicate with animals... but can't even touch a cat without freaking out.
  • Schmidt from New Girl is terrified of the birdcat (cat raised by birds) which lives on the roof.
  • On Impractical Jokers, Sal is terrified of cats of all sizes, even little kittens. Naturally, the other guys gleefully exploit this. Minor character Benjamin Cat is a black cat mascot that takes delight on chasing Sal.
  • Gertie Gator from The Noddy Shop has this according to the song "I'm Not Scared".
  • In the iCarly (2021) episode "iCause A Cat-Astrophe", Freddie reveals he's terrified of cats since a cat got stuck in the walls of their building when he was a kid. Spencer spends the whole B-plot trying to make Freddie face his fear.
  • In the first episode of Jeeves and Wooster, Sir Roderick Glossop and his wife "have a particular horror of cats" and a later gag implies they're also scared of goldfish. Earlier in the episode, Lady Glossop also expresses a strong dislike (though not necessarily fear) of foxes.

Dogs (cynophobia)

Rabbits (leporiphobia)

  • Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She dressed up as a bunny for Halloween in "Fear Itself" ("Bunnies frighten me."), sang about bunnies in "Once More, with Feeling!", then in "Tabula Rasa", she's standing on a table when misspoken incantations had filled the Magic Box floor with rabbits of all shapes and sizes, calling it a "cotton-top hell". Interestingly, a flashback to her pre-Vengeance Demon days in "Selfless" shows her raising rabbits. So either they are a reminder of a time she wants to forget, or something happened since then to make her fear them.
  • Julius is terrified of rabbits on Everybody Hates Chris because he saw a horror movie about them when he and Rochelle were dating. When he takes Drew to a magic show, he passes out when the magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat. Clearly, he saw Night of the Lepus.
  • Bishop Brennan in Father Ted — apparently he was once stuck in a lift in New York with about a hundred rabbits, and "they began nibbling at my cloak and everything". Obviously he is destined to wake up in a room full of rabbits in "The Plague" episode of season 2.

Birds (ornithophobia)

  • Sam(antha) of Are You Afraid of the Dark?
  • Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory had a severe form of this until Amy and Bernadette helped him get over it.
  • On CSI, lab tech David Hodges admitted that he had been attacked by Canadian geese as a kid while visiting an uncle in Saskatchewan.
  • In Friends, Rachel's mid season 4 love interest Joshua is afraid of farm birds, which we find out when he meets Joey and Chandler's chick and duck.
  • In The Mentalist, Jane determines that Sheriff McAllister, who turns out to be Jane's Arch-Enemy Red John, is afraid of birds, which he's able to make use of at a critical moment to turn the tables on him.
  • Dennis Finch from Just Shoot Me! has a fear of owls from his mother's side of the family.
  • Tokumei Sentai Go Busters: Hiromu (a.k.a. Red Buster) is surprisingly afraid of chickens, to the point where even seeing a picture of one causes him to freeze up. This is due to a traumatic event in his childhood where he was accidentally locked inside a chicken coop.
  • In Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper declines to feed Waldo, a myna bird being kept in police custody, or even get close to his cage, citing a dislike of birds. Waldo is ultimately harmless, of course... it's the owls Dale has to watch out for.

Fish (ichthyophobia)

  • In Call the Midwife, Trixie is terrified of fish- which causes trouble when she's delivering the baby of a fisherman's wife. Her patient says she has the same problem with chickens.
  • In Friends, Rachel claims to be afraid of fish after Phoebe tries to scare her out of living with Joey by buying him a tarantula (which he is terrified of, but Rachel loves). This is never mentioned either before or since.
  • In the Full House two-parter "The House Meets the Mouse" (where the cast goes to Walt Disney World), while scuba-diving with Jesse in the Coral Reef Restaurant Joey reveals he is deathly afraid of sharks... and possibly eggs.
  • Billy of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers was terrified of fish. For one episode, anyway. Apparently one bit him on the finger when he was a kid. This phobia turns up just in time for a fish-themed monster to appear so he can overcome it and rescue his friends. (This isn't a coincidence. Rita created the monster on purpose when she found out about it, and used a curse that amplified his phobia. By standing up to it, he not only broke the curse, but overcame the fear permanently.)
  • Grant Imahara of MythBusters is afraid of sharks. Naturally, he got to be the one in the water for the Shark Week episode.
  • On Sports Night, Dana claims to be afraid of fish — which is problematic, as her boyfriend Gordon really likes snorkeling.
    Dana: They live where it's murky. Poisonous, tentacle-bearing, prehistoric sea creatures.
    Isaac: You're afraid of fish?
    Dana: And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
    Isaac: There aren't gonna be any sharks down there.
    Dana: We don't know what the hell's gonna be down there. It's down there. It's their home court. They know what they're doing down there. They can breathe down there. I need this ridiculous rubber tube and a pair of goggles.
    Isaac: Are you afraid they're gonna make fun of you?

Other Animals

  • Don't Eat the Neighbours: In the first episode, Rabbit confides to Terrapin that he has a deep fear of wolves, and it's fortunate that he lives in Britain where there are no wolves. Unfortunately, a family of wolves move in next door from Canada later that day.
  • Horses: Parker, in Leverage. As a young child, she saw a horse kill a clown. (It was actually a guy in a horse costume.)
  • Comedian Russell Howard is afraid of guinea pigs, shown by his reaction to a guinea pig appearing on Russell Howard's Good News when he unsubtly hid behind the guest animal psychic.

Flying (aviophobia) or Heights (acrophobia)

  • Marshall Flinkman from Alias is terrified of flying.
  • Alice from Alice is very afraid of heights. Most likely to balance the fact that she is an Action Girl.
  • At least one team a season on The Amazing Race. If a fear is expressed at any point during the seasons (generally heights), expect the racers to have to face it at some point.
  • Gary on Are You Afraid of the Dark?
  • Arrowverse:
    • Felicity Smoak from Arrow doesn't realize her fear of heights until she and Oliver break into Merlyn Global and they have to swing through an elevator shaft to get inside.
    • Earth-Two Barry Allen from The Flash (2014) two-parter "Welcome To Earth-2"/"Escape From Earth-2" visibly panics when he finds out he, Earth-Two Iris, and Team Flash have to climb very steep cliffs on ice (courtesy of Killer Frost) to rescue Jessie Wells and Earth-One Barry from Zoom's clutches. When Killer Frost snidely asks him if he has any better ideas, he gives the very feeble excuse that he's wearing wind tips and they don't have much tread.
    • Lena Luthor from Supergirl admits that she hates flying even though she knows statistically speaking it's still the safest way to travel. This probably isn't helped when a series of weapon drones attacks and tries to kill her just when she's taking off on a helicopter.
  • BA Baracus in The A-Team. He typically has to be rendered unconscious before flying him anywhere. According to The Movie, he used to be a paratrooper and developed his fear from "H.M." Murdock's piloting.
  • In Auction Kings, Paul hates flying, Cindy hates heights in general. Paul had to ride with on a test flight of a plane he was to sell. Cindy got brought along to ride in a hot-air balloon. They both ended up enjoying the experiences in the end.
  • Carlie Kirkland from Banacek is afraid of heights. In "Rocket to Oblivion", she is visibly nervous when someone mentions that there is an 80 ft. drop to the floor from the catwalk they are on, and she comments that she gets uncomfortable on her kitchen ladder.
  • While not crippling, Summer from Baywatch is shown to have at least a slight fear of heights during her training of becoming a lifeguard when she's afraid to pier jump, Matt helps her overcome this by jumping together with her.
  • Brenda Walsh from Beverly Hills, 90210 has a fear of heights, which becomes an issue when she and Kelly win skydiving lessons from a radio contest.
    • In another episode, Andrea Zuckerman reveals that she has a fear of heights and of speed (Tachophobia) and is afraid of riding a rollercoaster as a result.
  • Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory is visibly terrified when he goes rock climbing with Kripke in one episode.
  • Lori from Big Wolf on Campus.
  • Jaime Sommers is scared of flying in the short-lived rebooted Bionic Woman series.
  • Jane from Blindspot has an extreme fear of flying, despite the fact that she knows how to fly a helicopter, making this somewhat of an Ironic Fear.
  • The first episode of The Bob Newhart Show has Bob heading a workshop for people trying to overcome their fear of flying. When the group is ready to "graduate", he plans a group flight from Chicago to New York, and enlists his wife Emily to join them... only to discover that she's afraid of flying herself.
  • Little Joe in Bonanza is terrified of heights as the result of a repressed childhood memory. This becomes a problem when his rifle gets stuck on top of a tall mountain.
  • The Brittas Empire:
    • In "Snap Happy", it is revealed that Helen has a fear of heights thanks to an unfortunate incident on her and Brittas' honeymoon where Brittas tripped on a very high diving board and was sent hurtling towards a group of synchronised swimmers. She tries to overcome this by doing a skydiving session, but her nerves and a poor choice of words from Brittas (who she had called in an attempt to calm down) causes her to skydive too early.
    • In "The Elephant's Child", it's revealed that both Tim and Gavin are afraid of heights, a problem since they are both expected to do a bungee jump and have not told each other this.
  • Angel and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are both nervous about flying, which is ironic given vampires are often portrayed as having flying powers outside the Buffyverse. As vampire-safe, sun-filtering windows are a recent invention, neither has had much chance to try it.
    Spike: I've never flown before.
    Angel: I've been in a helicopter. They don't...[glances at window, leans back] go this high.
  • Fred on Call the Midwife.
  • Piper from Charmed has a fear of flying, at least according to Prue. Piper feebly denies this and says she "just prefers the bus". This is never brought up again for the rest of the series, and the times we actually do see Piper fly on the show, she doesn't seem to have this same fear, suggesting she might have gotten over it at some point.
  • On Cheers, Carla is afraid to fly, which prevents her from seeing her husband, hockey player Eddie LeBec, on the road. She takes an aviaphobia group therapy class conducted by Frasier on a plane to get over it. Carla overcomes her fear but Frasier suddenly becomes freaked out about being on a plane.
  • Chuck Bartowski in the early seasons of Chuck. He eventually overcomes this as he undergoes training to become a spy.
  • Control Z: Zig-zagged with Javier. In 1.04, when Alex tells Sofía to jump into the pool from the roof (so that her secret won't be leaked), Javier becomes increasingly tense and supposedly finds this to be pointless, although Sofía jumps anyway. Later in 1.06, when the truth of Javier's dark past comes out, it turns out that his deceased former teammate's fate mirrored what Sofía did previously, so his objective reaction towards her was entirely justified because that accident has traumatized Javier and did not want the same to happen to Sofía, who actually managed to land into the pool.
  • Reid's mom (played by Jane Lynch) in Criminal Minds mentions being afraid of planes.
  • Logan Cale in Dark Angel. He seems to get over it after Max takes him up on the Space Needle in the season 1 finale.
  • Dave Barsky of Dirty Jobs, as shown in the "Aerial Tram Greaser" episode.
  • Fen from The Ember Blade due to her father throwing her off a cliff to see if she could survive by herself in the wild, so he wouldn't feel bad about committing suicide and leaving her alone.
  • Jack Carter of Eureka has acrophobia, although not to a disabling point, it does make him visibly uncomfortable in a few episodes.
  • When Bright Abbott from Everwood doesn't go with Ephram and Amy on a ferris wheel in the episode "The Great Doctor Brown", Amy reveals it's because he's afraid of heights.
  • The woman Frasier dates in the episode "First, Do No Harm'' (played by Teri Hatcher), to such an extent that she can't even go outside to see Frasier's balcony. She says she's been taking classes for it.
    • Another episode has one of Frasier's callers try to conquer her fear of heights by eating her lunch on top of the Space Needle, we hear her screaming in the background.
    • A very downplayed example, but a throwaway line from Niles Crane in yet another episode implies that he too has a fear of heights, at least when it comes to hot air balloons.
  • Oddly enough, Bruce Wayne of all people in Gotham at the beginning of the series. He gradually overcomes this (by standing outside his rooftop) as he learns to "conquer fear", he gets over it completely for the most part after he successfully manages to jump off a rooftop for the first time.
  • Grace Kelly from Grace Under Fire has height vertigo.
  • Horatio Hornblower: Horatio is prone to sea-sickness and is really afraid of heights. Excellent material for an officer in the Navy, wouldn't you say? His fear of heights is referenced quite often, and he has to climb in the riggings or on the fighting top and deal with shortening sails quite a lot. In "Retribution", he volunteers himself to descend from a cliff on a rope and his pal Archie mischievously reminds him of his anxiety.
    Archie Kennedy: [saucily] I remember when you used to be scared of heights, Mr. Hornblower.
    Horatio Hornblower: [measures the height he must descend from] Nothing's changed, Mr. Kennedy.
  • Robin Scherbatsky's mother Genevieve in How I Met Your Mother initially didn't want to go to her and Barney's wedding because she was terrified of flying. She manages to overcome this fear (by being strapped to the seat after having an initial violent Freak Out) and does make it.
  • Rogelio in Jane the Virgin is terrified of heights and won't even set foot on the balcony to help Alma in the decorations for Jane's baby shower. When he had to stand on a platform with Xiomara to shoot a scene for his movie, Xiomara had to pretend she was afraid of heights to save him the embarrassment.
  • MacGyver, at least in the early seasons. He seems to get over his problem with heights as the show progressed.
  • Trini in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is fearful of heights. She's forced to face it down to aid Billy in one episode and is caught in an illusion dealing with this in another.
  • Ed in Mister Ed. This becomes the storyline of the episode "Psychoanalyst Show" as Wilbur tries everything from hypnosis and psychiatry to help cure him of this phobia, he eventually succeeds by the end of the episode.
  • MythBusters:
    • In the "Hammer Drop", we find out that Jamie Hyneman apparently has a mild case of acrophobia. This comes up again in the "Outtakes Special". In some unaired footage from "Plywood Builder", Jamie is trying to reassure Christine about her impending (until she decided not to) zipline ride, and says "You know I'm afraid of heights". And he jumps off a building in "Dumpster Dive" ... but you could tell he wasn't happy about it. He was even less happy about crossing a 100-foot duct tape bridge 50 feet above the ground. Though, considering how unstable the thing was...
    • Colleague Tory Belleci is also acrophobic, so he had to go up in a stunt plane for the "Cold Feet" myth.
  • Tim McGee from NCIS is revealed to be afraid of heights in the episode "Leap Of Faith". It's pretty much completely Played for Laughs.
  • Both versions of Neverwhere have Richard Mayhew say he dislikes heights rather early on. The series has it in the introduction of the very first episode, where Richard talks about himself including his dislike of rats, blood, and heights. He encounters all three.
  • Ryan Atwood in The O.C., as we find out in the aptly titled episode "The Heights". He ends up facing this fear at the end of the episode by going up on a ferris wheel to apologize to Marissa after they had a fight earlier in the episode.
  • Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap, who, due to the amnesia caused by leaping, didn't remember his fear of heights until he leaped into a trapeze artist in the middle of a practice.
  • Nigel Bailey from Relic Hunter almost always panics or is at the very least extremely nervous of any situation involving heights.
  • A Sanford and Son episode has Fred inheriting money from an uncle, with the hitch being that he has to fly home to St. Louis (which he's afraid to do) to collect.
  • Clark Kent in the early seasons of Smallville. Insert clever one-liner about "Irony" here.
  • When Chad Dylan Cooper claims he fears nothing in one episode of Sonny with a Chance, Sonny contradicts him by mentioning that he's afraid of heights (and spiders), though apparently not low ones.
  • Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1 mentions in a throwaway line in one episode that he has a problem with heights. This came up right before he and Sam had to crawl across a tiny strip of floor over an apparently bottomless pit. He did fine with it, and eventually threw himself off their "bridge" to save their companion, 'cause he's Daniel.
  • Supernatural's Dean Winchester is terrified of flying. Why do you think he drives everywhere?
  • In the Shake it Up special Made In Japan, Rocky had to take hypnotherapy to overcome her fear of flying when the Shake it Up, Chicago! cast wins a trip to Japan.
  • Jack Tripper in Three's Company has a fear of flying, which naturally gets exploited when Janet asks him to accompany her on a trip to a small island for a formal party.
  • Presenter James May on Top Gear gets height vertigo (a spinning sensation when he looks down from a height). He took flying lessons and acquired a private pilot's license to help himself learn to cope with it. He's still not quite over it though, as evidenced by the Bolivia special.
  • It's heavily implied that Scott from Through the Dragon's Eye suffers from this as he's clearly uncomfortable with riding on Gorwen's back and panics when he has to swing across a chasm via rope ladder. It makes his decision to climb a decaying tree laid across a gap in a high up cliff edge to get the last Veeton all the more heroic at the end of Chapter 9.
  • UN bigwig Chrisjen Avasarala from the "The Expanse" TV series absolutely hates flying and especially space flight (for a good reason, as she isn't the youngest anymore, as much as loathes to admit it, and space flight, especially take-off or phases of high acceleration put a dangerous strain on her body (it almost killed her once when she had to escape an assassination attempt by elements of her own government)).
  • Carlos Sandoval of Walker, Texas Ranger is terrified of heights, but it's not until he, Trent and the titular ranger confront the gunman who tried to kill him does he eventually conquer his fear after he and Trent save Walker from falling to his death.

Water (aquaphobia/hydrophobia)

  • Malcom Reed from Star Trek: Enterprise has a fear of drowning that prevented him from carrying on his family's naval tradition. Oddly enough, this fear doesn't extend to the vacuum of space. Maybe he realized that Space is NOT an ocean.
  • Michal Minato from Kamen Rider OOO is afraid of water. This is very inconvenient, as he is Kamen Rider Aqua; a Kamen Rider powered by water.
  • George Ikaruga from Ultraman Mebius isn't afraid of water per se (he's a good swimmer, in fact). He's specifically afraid of the Ocean. Perhaps justified in his case, as when he was younger, something horrible would happen to him every time he went there. He eventually decided the Ocean just had it in for him.

Fire (pyrophobia)

  • Zoe Graystone in Caprica, due to almost dying in a housefire as a child.
  • Control Z: Sofía is afraid of fire. Her father supposedly died in a fire, but had actually faked his own death, an incident that has traumatized and marked Sofía ever since. Later in season 2, Sofía and Javier investigate Luis' house and the avenger coincidentally sets the house on fire through a molotov cocktail to try and kill his mother. As the fire expands, Sofía is forced to relive that fateful day before she snaps back to reality, having to confront her fears in order for her and Javier to escape safe and sound.
  • Doctor Who: The Doctor, at least in his third incarnation. Watching a parallel Earth destroyed in flames does a number on him.
  • Game of Thrones: Sandor Clegane has an intense phobia of fire after being horribly burned by his brother as a child. In "Blackwater", he deserts the defense of King's Landing when the battlefield gets covered in fire. In "Kissed By Fire", he's forced to fight a duel with an opponent wielding a flaming sword. In Season 4, he refuses to cauterize a wound that is going septic.
  • Shalimar Fox in Mutant X.
  • One Life to Live's Luna Moody was terrified of fire, due to nearly dying when Klansmen torched her store. Even worse, one of them raped her. When she and Max have a Near-Death Experience and she asks Death to Take Me Instead, Death promptly dares her to walk through a wall of fire to prove her love for Max and tauntingly responds, "I know" when Luna expresses her fear. Throughout her time on the show, there were several other fires that terrified for this very reason and when she passed away, Max went ballistic when someone suggested cremation.
  • During the flamethrower episode of Sons of Guns, it's revealed that Will has been deathly afraid of fire since he was three, when the house he was sleeping in burned to the ground.
  • Fox Mulder of The X-Files, discussed in "Fire". As a child, his friend's house burned down, and he spent the night in the wreckage alongside him to deter looters — he tells Scully that for years after, he had nightmares of being trapped in a burning building. However, it was an issue for the episode, and it was never brought up again, perhaps because the events of the episode helped him overcome his fear.
Other Things in Nature
  • In the Criminal Minds episode "Boogeyman", JJ admits that she's afraid of the woods. She has no idea why, though she does screw with Morgan by making up a story that led to her fear.
  • Simon Tam of Firefly is a cosmophobe (afraid of space), as first shown in the episode "Bushwacked".
  • When MythBusters looked at ways flu/cold virii could be spread, Kari Byron confessed to being something of a germophobe. She was the only one not to get "tagged" with Adam's fluorescent fake snot thanks to her previously developed skills at staying away from the ickies.
  • In New Tricks, Gerry has a phobia about forests as a result of a childhood trauma.
  • A.J. from The River has speluncaphobia, the fear of caves, thanks to having been in a mining accident.

Clowns (coulrophobia)

  • Aliens in the Family: Bobut is terrified of clowns. When a photographer dressed up as a clown tries to take his picture, he zaps him with a laser.
  • Kristen of Are You Afraid of the Dark?.
  • Booth from Bones. He once shot a plastic clown on the top of an ice cream truck, and a Serial Killer posing as a clown. Said Serial Killer's MO was scaring people to death, and presumably disguised himself as a clown because clowns scary everyone.
  • Alan Shore in Boston Legal, as we learn when he has a case involving a professional clown who shows up to court in full costume. Alan avoids looking directly at the man for fear of publicly wetting himself.
  • Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayerhe deals with it by punching the knife-wielding nightmare clown chasing him and tells off the clown for making bad balloon animals.
  • Doctor Who and spinoffs:
    • Sarah Jane Smith of both Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures. (Mention of Johnny Depp!)
    • "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy": It's not clear if Ace has a true phobia of clowns, but she does think they're creepy.
    • "The God Complex": People get trapped in a hotel where they meet their worst fears. However, a malfunction in the alien technology keeps the fears of previous occupants around. One of these is a clown, sitting sadly on a bed.
  • Frasier: In "Boo!" Frasier is treating a woman with severe coulrophobia. The woman works as a pediatric nurse and freaks out every time a clown comes in to visit the children. Frasier attempts to use exposure therapy by showing her a Jack-in-the-Box but she screams whenever it pops up.
    Frasier: Is there anything you'd like to say to our little clown friend?
    Mimi: Please don't kill me!
  • Zak Bagans from Ghost Adventures isn't fond of clowns. He briefly goes to a place that's right out of a coulrophobic's worst nightmare during the revisit to Goldfield, Nevada: a clown motel. Even the clerk at said motel doesn't like clowns.
  • In Good Luck Charlie, PJ mentions clowns are one of the things he's afraid of. When he moves in with Emmett in season 3, he has to deal with a clown living across the window from their apartment.
  • In Haven, Audrey Parker and her counterpart, Audrey II, are terrified of a Monster Clown that nearly scared them to death when they were 6. Given that "Audrey II" is the real Audrey, our Audrey is only really afraid of clowns with her memories.
  • Played for Laughs in Jessica Jones (2015) with Trish Walker.
    Jessica: Trish, what are you afraid of?
    Trish: Not much anymore. Except clowns, but that's just common sense.
  • Overton from Living Single was horrified by clowns.
    • As was Cole from Martin. He was even afraid of Ronald McDonald.
  • Midsomer Murders: In the Circus Episode "Send in the Clowns", viewers learns that DCI John Barnaby suffers from coulrophobia.
  • Modern Family has kind of a subversion. Phil thinks his fear of clowns is irrational by nature and has nothing to do with that time he found a dead clown in a field when he was a kid.
  • The episode "My Big Fat Pizza Party" of That's So Raven reveals that Cory is afraid of clowns. He even objected to having a clown at William's birthday party.
  • Kramer in Seinfeld. Incidentally, his real life inspiration Kenny Kramer is a big fan of clowns.
  • In one episode of Sonny with a Chance, Chad took care of a group of kids from an institute who have a fear of clowns.
  • John Sheppard of Stargate Atlantis.
  • Supernatural's Sam Winchester remains freaked out by clowns even after years of fighting supernatural creatures and a visit to Hell. According to his brother, he gets scared when seeing Ronald McDonald on TV.
    Dean: I know what you're thinking, Sam. "Why did it have to be clowns?"
  • In the Halloween episode of The Worst Year of My Life, Again, we learn that the school bully Parker is afraid of clowns.
  • Chicago Fire: Brett is afraid of clowns. To the point that in one episode, she had a genuinely hard time treating a man who was disguised as a clown. Once the guy realized this, he deliberately tried to make her more uncomfortable.

Women (gynophobia)

  • Raj from The Big Bang Theory, while not afraid of women per se, has a comedic inability to speak to women while sober.
  • Father Dougal in Father Ted, as befits his childish personality. He's okay with nuns, though, since he doesn't think of them as "real women." Father Jack is the opposite, lusting after girls but being terrified of nuns.

Blood (hemophobia)

  • Doc Martin in the show of the same name.
  • Doctor Who: In "The Girl Who Died", one of the Viking villagers faints at the sight of blood, which eventually leads to the village catching on fire after an attempt at Training the Peaceful Villagers goes wrong.
  • Frasier: Niles Crane faints when he even sees a tiny cut on a finger.
  • One of Richard Mayhew's three fears in Neverwhere. At the beginning of the pilot episode, Richard talks about himself including his fear of rats, blood, and heights. He encounters all three.
  • Person of Interest: Mr. Finch. First mentioned in an episode where he has to go undercover in a hospital, where he understandably gets very uncomfortable when he ends up assisting in an operation (much to the concern of the real surgeon). A later episode shows Harold very nervously helping Shaw with a man's gunshot wound, and then getting out of the way as quickly as possible.
  • Space: Above and Beyond: In an episode where the enemy is using a fear-enhancing weapon, Damphousse is revealed to have a fear of blood. Perhaps a bit ironic for a Marine.

Ghosts (phasmophobia)

  • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger: Takeru, despite being able to slaughter dozens of Gedoushu, still faints at the sight of an amusement park haunted house!

Darkness (nyctophobia)

  • Are You Afraid of the Dark? Well, are you? Frank is.
  • Simone Marks, the mother of Serial Killer George Marks from Cold Case was so afraid of the dark, that it caused her to have hysterical blindness and she called him "the darkness" and subsequently locked him in the attic.
    • The killer from "Thrill Kill" was also terrified of the dark, so much that he killed his own son and his friends when they played an innocent prank on him, taped their eyes shut and allowed two young teenagers to take the fall for his crimes.
  • Criminal Minds: Spencer Reid claims to be afraid of the dark "because of the inherent absence of light."
  • Doctor Who: But it's not the dark, it's Vashta Nerada. These are microscopic creatures that tend to disguise themselves as shadows. Once you get too near them, you'll be killed instantly. The Doctor explains that these creatures are the reason so many races fear the dark.
  • A Serial Killer from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was ultimately broken down by both having his estranged mother brought into the interrogation room and being locked into a dark closet by Benson and Stabler in an effort to get him confess. It worked.
  • Winston on New Girl. Jess has also claimed to be afraid of the dark after getting pushed into a closet by Prince.
  • The Crybabies, Salt and Pepper, The Do-Wop Penguins and Truman in The Noddy Shop have this fear. Justified for Truman and the Crybabies, as they are around the age when kids usually have this phobia.
  • Bosco on Third Watch.

Other phobias

  • Beards (pogonophobia) — Frank, from The Adventures of Lano and Woodley . Everyone he runs into throughout the episode in question has a beard. It's cured at the end, though.
  • As revealed on Attack of the Show!, co-host Olivia Munn is also afraid of balloons. Needless to say, fellow co-host Kevin Pereira takes so much delight in tormenting her whenever the subject comes up.
  • Molly from The Big Comfy Couch is afraid of fireworks, as seen in "The Big Bang Boom"
  • Tommy from Big Wolf on Campus is afraid of ending up alone due to people finding out about his lycanthropy. And Merton is scared of monster movies (which is kind of weird, because he's a Goth).
  • Balloons (globophobia) — Lacey and Davis in an episode of Corner Gas. Also, by the end of that episode we find out that Brent seems to have a fear of globes (although he's a prolific Deadpan Snarker, so it's very possible that his frightened reaction to the globe was a sarcastic joke).
    • Wanda's implied agoraphobia (fear of open space). It's especially ironic as she lives in Saskatchewan, which has nothing but open space.
  • On Crossbones, Selima is severely agoraphobic, to the point where she violently refuses to leave Blackbeard's house.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "The Robots of Death" has "robophobia" or "Grimwade's Syndrome" as a reasonably common psychological condition in the setting, apparently caused by people with particularly keen body language skills subconsciously associating the stiff, humanoid robots with walking corpses. Poul suffers from this condition, and in the sequel Expanded Universe material it is revealed both Toos and Uvanov have developed cases of it as a result of the trauma they suffered at the hands of the robots, while Poul's has worsened to the point of being barely functional.
    • "Amy's Choice": In the Leadworth reality, heavily-pregnant Amy is not thrilled about having to do a lot of running while being chased by the Monster of the Week.
    • "The Ghost Monument": Ryan Sinclair quotes the trope name almost word-for-word when he has to, yet again, climb a ladder in a hurry. He has dyspraxia, a neurological condition causing poor coordination, which makes ladders more dangerous for him than the average person.
      "Why did it have to be ladders?"
  • Donkey Hodie:
    • Donkey Hodie is afraid of shellfish. Purple Panda says that they give her the heebies and the jeebies.
    • Purple Panda had a fear of rocking chairs when he was younger, until his mama told him to pretend a swing was a rocking chair. In "A Donkey Hodie Halloween", we also learn that he's afraid of many Halloween decorations, but he's most afraid of skeletons.
    • Duck Duck has one of spaceships in "The Lavender Lights", but her friends help her overcome her fear later in the episode by showing her what it will be like.
    • Bob Dog used to have a fear of the dentist until his grandma gave him a fuzzy ball he named Howard.
  • In The Mandalorian, the titular protagonist has robophobia which does make his life difficult as he lives in a universe where droids are literally everywhere and are vital assets. Initially Mando won’t even let droids help fix his ship or take a ride on a Landspeeder driven by a usually harmless Astromech droid. The source of this droid aversion is well justified, as shown in a Flash Back Mando watched his parents and village get butchered by Battle Droids during the Clone Wars as a boy. Mando does seemly get over this fear after IG-11‘s reprogramming near the end of Season 1, although he’s still uneasy around killer droids as seen in Chapter 10 “The Passenger” where the Frog Lady uses the remains of Q9-0 to communicate and startles Mando badly.
    • Fittingly the final antagonists in Season 2 happen to be an army of Dark Troopers, specialised combat droids. One of whom almost kills Mando.
    • A crossover with The Book of Boba Fett has Mando help protect Mos Espa from the Pyke Syndicate and their army of Scorpeneck droids. When one prepares to crush Mando, he hopelessly cowers until his foundling, Grogu, topples the droid.
  • Alan Statham from Green Wing is scared of goblins. When Joanna decides to scare him (because his cheerfulness was annoying her) she asks her dwarf cousin to hide under his desk, with green make-up over his face and jump out at him shouting "boo!" Statham then beats him to death with a heron.
  • On Home Improvement Tim's neighbor Wilson reveals his biggest fear is that all of reality is actually a dream, and when the dreamer wakes up, he'll cease to exist.
  • JAG: In "Shadow", Meg is claustrophobic. It has never been a serious problem for her before, but being aboard a submarine causes her to go into a barely concealed breakdown.
  • Noise — Leonard Hatred in Look Around You, invented "Psilence", a type of liquid skin that blocks the ears, as a response to being subjected to loud noises all his life. (Unfortunately the mental instability caused by his condition ultimately led him to attack Sir Prince Charles at an award ceremony.)
  • A M*A*S*H episode has Hawkeye and Margaret simultaneously confronted by (and trying to help each other get through) their greatest respective fears, claustrophobia and loud noises.
  • Brick in The Middle is afraid of bridges.
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Kimberly the Pink Ranger is terrified of roller coasters (which arachnophobic Zack can't get enough of).
  • In the original Mission: Impossible, Cinnamon is claustrophobic. There's a delicious arc in which the bad guys trick her into trying to escape through a narrow pipe, then lock her in the middle.
    • Given Cinnamon shares her phobia with her actress Barbara Bain, that scene was not fun to do.
  • Adrian Monk's assistant Sharona has a phobia of elephants... but the man himself has every phobia on this list, plus almost any other phobia known to man. You'd think this would interfere with his detective abilities, but phobias can actually enhance them at times.
  • Abby from NCIS, the Perky Goth who sleeps in a coffin, is terrified of the NCIS morgue. Specifically, she has a fear of being dead and eviscerated in the autopsy table, the thought of which freaks her out so much she can't even bring herself to push the down button on the elevator. Ducky helps her get over her fear at the end of the morgue hostage episodenote  by letting her sleep on the autopsy table, treating it like her bed-coffin at home.
  • One song in The Noddy Shop was about the toys' fears. The ones in that song that are not related to any of the other subcategories include:
    • Stein has a fear of sauerkraut.
    • Johnny Crawfish has a fear of being bitten.
    • Warloworth is scared of the floor making creeking noises.
  • Agent Olive of the Odd Squad has a crippling fear of pies. Her successor, Agent Otis, is terrified of ducks. We actually get to learn the reasons behind both these fears in Wham Episodes vital to their seasons' arcs.
  • Ben Wyatt of Parks and Recreation appears to have policophobia:
    Ben: I'm not afraid of cops. I have no reason to be, I never break any laws ever... because I'm deathly afraid of cops.
  • Alfredo Aldarisio from Pushing Daisies was terrified of the possibility that the Earth's atmosphere would one day be sucked away into space, leaving them all to suffocate.
    • Olive mentions the same fear, leading him to believe that he had found someone he could relate to. Sadly, she was being metaphorical.
  • On Sirens (US), Brian is afraid of midget hands.
  • A scene on The Sketch Show has the five stars in a support group for phobias - Lee has a fear of people screaming, Jim has a fear of apologies, Karen has a fear of repetition, Ronnie has a fear of awkward silences and Tim barks at people's phobias. This combination repeatedly sets off chains of screaming.
  • Star Trek occasionally delves into the subject of transporter phobia.
    • Doctor McCoy of Star Trek: The Original Series expresses some unease with the transporter. To be fair, the only time he truly balks at using it, it's in the aftermath of a particularly grotesque Teleporter Accident that killed two crew members, so he's probably justified.
    • Doctor Pulaski of Star Trek: The Next Generation has a more sustained fear of the transporter, though she'll tolerate it if it's truly necessary to ensure the well-being of a patient. She tells Picard at one point that what she fears is that the transporter will "scatter [her] atoms across the galaxy".
    • TNG's Lieutenant Barclay suffers from a severe transporter phobia, so much so that even when he tries to push through it, he's overcome by panic and runs from the transporter room. Unlike other cases that had been shown up to that point, his fear is not specifically of a Teleporter Accident; he just finds the whole concept somewhat horrifying. By the end of the episode, he seems to have at least gotten his fear down to the point where it's manageable.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine reveals that Lt. Worf, the resident Klingon, has one fear: tribbles.
    • This seems to be a cultural thing for his people, since every other Klingon that has come into contact with tribbles has also expressed a fear/seething hatred of them because they're an invasive species that's damn near impossible to get rid of.
    • Garak is an extreme claustrophobe, brought on by the fact that his father punished him by locking him in the closet as a child. In "By Inferno's Light", he had to struggle through his claustrophobia to get himself, Worf, Bashir, and Martok out of a Dominion prison camp. Later, in "Afterimage", he suffers increasingly frequent panic attacks from feelings that Deep Space 9 was too confining, at one time panicking to the point that he tried to vacate the station via the airlock. It is later revealed, however, that the main source of his panic attacks was guilt over cracking Cardassian codes, leading to crushing defeats of Cardassian fleets during the Dominion War, and a feeling that he betrayed his own people.
  • Embarrassment: Richard Hammond. "I have several recurring nightmares. One in which I am presenting a radio show and can't work the desk, another in which I find myself on stage with a truly catastrophic band. I am only waiting now for Top Gear to make me run naked through a shopping centre on a Saturday and I will have completed the set."
  • V (1983). Mike Donovan and Martin are fugitives inside the Visitor spacecraft when Martin finds a means of escape. Because their spacecraft spend a lot of time parked in the atmosphere, automatic-deploying parachutes were stashed on the lower decks as an emergency escape system. It so happens that Donovan had recently mentioned he had a fear of parachuting after his plane was shot down during the Vietnam War. Martin ends up shoving Donovan down the escape chute first just to make sure he jumps.


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