Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The Phobia: Eggs

The Cause: Buffy The Vampire Slayer - ’Bad Eggs’ (1998)

Those yummy oval-shaped balls of yolky goodness - eggs - are a staple diet of nations across the globe. A perennial breakfast favourite in various guises, whether it be fried, boiled or whisked into an omelette, the egg is so delicious that even A-Team legend Dirk Benedict poached his surname from a related dish! But put an egg on the plate of a hardened Buffy fan and you can expect a shudder...

For fans of the hit vampire-slaying show had a new recipe to contend with in 1998 - ’Eggs A La Creepy Crawley’. Ewwww!

The appropriately titled second season episode ’Bad Eggs’ hatched a storyline where a sex education lesson at Sunnydale High School for Buffy and her Scooby Gang involved the teacher handing out raw eggs for each pupil to look after like a baby, in a bid to teach them responsibility and stay clear of hanky panky. But these were no normal eggs. Hell, no. These were the kind of eggs that sprouted long, spindly tentacles from inside and probed a sleeping slayer from her bedside table.

Xander, showing typical alpha male parenting skills, opted to hard boil his egg to prevent ’his baby’ from cracking. Ovum infanticide? Nah, it was a wise move, or so it seemed until the pangs of hunger got the better of him and he went to tuck into his egg for lunch. Fortunately, he noticed just in time that a boiled bug car carcass was popping out of the shell - mere centimetres from his gob.

"I almost ate one of those things," squirmed Xander later. "I think I fulfilled my gross out quota for the decade". The audience weren’t faring much better either as they rushed to check inside their fridges, although chickens across the world were breathing a sigh of relief.

As for poor ’Wiccan’ Willow, she was firmly under eggy bug control, with the critter discreetly manacled to her back. Just as well it wasn’t on her face or else the makers of Alien would be launching a lawsuit.

Buffy eventually saved Sunnydale from bug possession, but perhaps it was too late to save hordes of viewers from skipping their soft-boiled eggs the next morning. Not even an array of soldiers would be enough for comfort...