Harry the Moth

### Description

You will be missed Harry. I feel like your death was partly my fault. r.i.p in peace (pieces). Big thanks to Jaiden Animations for sending me clips of her dog

### Category

Comedy
Animation

**Harry the Moth** is a video created by James Rallison (TheOdd1sOut), uploaded on March 25, 2017.

## Synopsis

James tells basically the life story of his short-lived moth pet Harry.

## Stories

### A little talk about moths

For some reason, most people think butterflies are better than moths. There are children's books about butterflies used as metaphors of change. Some people catch them with nets, collect them, and impale them onto boards for display. Moths are basically the "white trash version of butterflies." Moths like flying to bright light so much, even deadly bug zappers. They even eat clothes. The state James lived in, Arizona has not only normal moths but also large white-lined sphinx moths.

### Welcome to our home, Harry

One night, when James was five, a white-lined sphinx moth was hanging out at the porch light in his house. Then when someone opened the door, the moth got in. Next morning, James and his sister Faith found him lying on the kitchen windowsill and put him into a jar, keeping him as a pet. Faith named the moth Harry even though he was not hairy. They put leaves in the jar, which would have been better "if he was still a caterpillar". Their mother, who was not thrilled, suggested taking Harry to kindergarten the next day so that he can be the class pet. So that was what they did, and it impressed the class.

### Circle of life and death

The kindergarten teacher did not think it was a smart idea to have a class pet who could not live throughout the school year, so she decided that the class could take Harry outside and release him in a lesson about nature. A possible reason for that suggestion was so that she would not have to lie that the moth is sleeping if the moth died. At recess, when the teacher released Harry, she had to shake the jar for the moth to get out. 10 seconds after Harry flew out of the jar, a bird swooped down and ate it, terrifying the whole class. So the teacher had to give them a lecture about how nature is scarier in real life than in movies. At home, Faith told their mother what happened, and the mother got really "emotional".

### Conclusion

Years have passed and James and Faith still remember Harry and talk to each other randomly about him. James shows some Google pictures of caterpillars (Harry's baby pictures), empty jars (Harry's first apartment), and birds (the last thing Harry saw before his death). Then a small black-and-white montage of moth clips plays with James singing a small cover of "I Will Remember You" by Sarah Mclachlan.

### End-card

James decided to record a face-cam video during the end-card so that people would get used to what he looks like because he was going to Vidcon as a featured creator. He also changed his channel name to its current one, removing "Comic" from "TheOdd1sOut Comic". Then the video ends with some Jaiden (Jaiden Animations) and Ari video clips.

## Characters

* James
* Faith
* Mom (Janette)
* Harry
* Bird
* Teacher
* Jaiden (Jaiden Animations)
* Ari

## Reception

Like many of his videos, the reception is positive.

## Trivia

* This video was rewritten in The Odd 1s Out: How to Be Cool and Other Things I Definitely Learned from Growing Up.
* A few films were mentioned in this video: *Mothra* (1961), *Finding Nemo* (2003), *Happy Feet* (2006), *Free Willy* (1993), and Spirit.
* The scene from the Pokemon Indigo League episode "Bye Bye Butterfree," where Ash's Butterfree flies away with a pink Butterfree and Misty waves goodbye to them, was used with Harry and another moth over the two Butterfree and James, Faith, and a kindergartner's faces over Ash, Misty, and Brock's faces respectively.
* James made a board game based on Harry, called "Can't Catch Harry."