Hey! Where'd my money go?
"NO! MY MOTH COLLECTION!"
— K.O., OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
When a character is poor, there's no better way for him to say "I have no money" (due to Perpetual Poverty or a Broke Episode) than to have moths emerge from his wallet when he opens it. It's also the perfect way to show that a character with tons of money at his disposal is a complete skinflint. Alternately, the character can make a great show of pulling the pockets of his pants inside out (an act that might also be accompanied by the appearance of moths). Double points if the character does both.
A common variant, usually associated with the stingy more than the simply poor, has the moth rejoice at being freed from its prison. In an older variant, moths also came out of empty pantries.
For the most part, this is an Animation Trope and visual symbol, being very impractical to do in live-action, but also spread into comics. However, it isn't often used anymore even in cartoons.
Little to no relation with Macabre Moth Motif and Moth Menace. Contrast Bat Scare, in which the startling appearance of flying creatures indicates a location is unexplored or abandoned. Compare other common poverty tropes such as the Bindle Stick, Bankruptcy Barrel, Lint Value, and Shopping Cart of Homelessness.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Justified in the anime adaptation. After Giorno returns a purse stolen by a pickpocket, its owner opens it and a pair of moths fly out. The moths then return to Giorno, who picks them up and turns them back into the paper money that they were before he used his Stand Gold Experience to bring them to life.
Comic Books
- The Beano uses it whenever a character takes out a wallet or otherwise searches for money. Unless their gimmick is being incredibly rich, of course; in this case, moths will sometimes fly out wearing tiny top hats or carrying diamond rings.
- This happens in an Ivy The Terrible comic strip with Ivy's dad pulling at his pockets.
- In one strip, a very dumb character has his skull x-rayed, revealing a moth instead of a brain.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: This is pretty much guaranteed to happen to Scrooge McDuck whenever he opens his wallet or change purse, so as to indicate that, because he's a miser, he opens his wallet very seldom. In one story, after the witch Magica DeSpell steals his purse and looks through it, a moth flutters out and thanks her for letting it free.
Moth: Oh, thank you madam! If it weren't for you, I feared I would never again see the light of the sun.
- The Unbelievable Gwenpool: Gwenpool references a modern take on this trope when telling MODOK why she absolute needs the next mercenary job.
Gwen: I tried to check my bank balance online, and instead it ran moth-escape.gif.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: This happens once when Calvin's dad is paying Rosalyn's baby-sitting bonus, emptying out his wallet while a moth flies out.
- Liō: Lampshaded in a strip where Lio's dad is shown with a package of "Wallet Moths" used to trick Lio into thinking he's broke.
Fanfiction
- Cold blood
: Hermione suggests that Fred, George and Neville spend the night at the Leaky Cauldron.
In reply, the twins turned their pockets inside out. Harry watched curiously for a few moments, before he had to ask.
"Did you put these moths in there, just in case, or is that one of your joke enchantments?"
Films — Animation
- Fantasia 2000: This occurs to the man in the diner during the "Rhapsody in Blue" segment.
- The Princess and the Frog: The tarot card that Facilier uses to depict a broke Naveen shows him turning out his pockets with moths flying out.
- Scary Godmother: When Harry the werewolf orders a few dozen pizzas to the Halloween party, Scary Godmother (understandably) looks at him expectantly. This is all they find, much to SG's annoyance.
- The Thief and the Cobbler: The opening has the Thief opening woefully poor Tack's wallet in his sleep, only for a few moths to fly out.
- The Triplets of Belleville: Mme Souza, while trying to order a hamburger, opens her purse, only for a moth to fly out of it. When it lands on the smiling cashier's face, the cashier realizes that her customer has no money.
Films — Live-Action
- The Mask: The title character has a moth fly out of his pocket to show how poor he is.
- The Three Stooges: In the short "From Nurse to Worse", Moe and Larry pry open Curly's money purse (that he keeps around his neck, hidden beneath layers of shirts), and moths fly out. Inside is a single moth-eaten dollar bill.
Literature
- McBroom Tells the Truth by Sid Fleischman: Used as a plot point. Josh McBroom buys a seemingly worthless farm for everything in his wallet, and when it turns out to be valuable land, the swindler who sold the land demands it back, saying that McBroom still owes him the moths that flew out when he handed over the money.
Live-Action TV
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has Tituss at the ATM. His balance is $2, which he opts to withdraw. The fee is $3. He accepts, and instead of getting his money, a receipt comes out informing him his new balance is negative one dollar.
Puppet Shows
- The Muppet Show: In Zero Mostel's episode, when Kermit checks the theatre's cashbox, three moths flutter out and he muses "Three moths and a washer... more than we usually have."
Video Games
- Hollow Knight: The Trash Pit, a large room in Hallownest's sewer area filled with washed-up refuse, contains numerous adjacent money chests. When opened, these contain only small pittances of Geo instead of the usual large windfalls, and one reveals nothing but a small cluster of lumaflies that fly out and scatter away.
- Quest for Glory I: If you look at your money pouch when it's empty, you may randomly get a message noting that your wallet contains nothing but an escaping moth.
"A moth flies from your money pouch. That is all."
- Rogue Legacy 2:
- The Diogenes' Bargain relic removes all further money drops from your run, but boosts the experience you gain in return. Should you attempt to open a chest that would normally contain money while you have this relic, the nothing you receive is heralded by a handful of moths flying out of the chest.
- Opening the boss chest after beating Estuary Enoch leaves you with naught but a few moths. That's because it's not the real chest.
- Tumblestone: A moth flies out of the Goblin King's turned-out pockets.
- The Z Machine Matter: If you examine your wallet at the beginning of the game it gives you this description:
Several moths fly out. Unfortunately, you're just about outta dough.
Web Comics
- another piece of candy, by NomnomNami: Played with in the "moth hostage" arc. When Moxie claims to have brought money to buy candy, she opens her wallet and a moth flies out of it... only the moth turns out to be the moth princess Poffin, whom Moxie kidnapped so she could trade her for candy. Unfortunately, the store does not accept payments in princesses, so Moxie is still broke.
- Dead Winter: When Lizzie opens her wallet to buy a drink, a smiling moth is the only thing that comes out of it.
- Dork Tower: In this strip, moths somehow fly out of a PC monitor.
- Rae the Doe: In the Christmas special Cybil finds a moth in her wallet. Being a moth herself, she recognizes it as a relative.
Web Original
- Happy Tree Friends: In "Mime to Five", when Mime wants to buy a new unicycle, he pulls out his pockets to find them empty, with a moth flying out.
- Pogo: In the Mellow Brick Road music video, the Scarecrow indicates his lack of brains by pulling off his hat and having a moth fly out. Not quite this trope, but clearly drawing upon the same imagery to indicate "empty."
- Uncyclopedia has a page advertising wallet moths.
- Woodworking for Mere Mortals: One episode starts with a skit made to look and sound like a silent film. A boy walks down a road and fails to find any money in his pocket. It being a silent film, we get a closeup of him pulling his pocket inside out to indicate this in lieu of any dialog. See it here.
Western Animation
- American Dad!: "Dope and Faith": A variant. A moth flies out of Stan's address book to discredit his claim that he has real friends.
- Arthur: "Misfortune Teller": A variation. When Buster shows he had no money. In one of his pockets is a dead moth.
- Camp Lazlo: When Scoutmaster Lumpus opens his wallet in "Prickly Pining Dining", a large cloud of dust escapes.
- DuckTales (1987): "Duckworth's Revolt": Duckworth relates his duties of the day to Huey, Dewey, and Louie, noting that he was due to dust off Scrooge's credit cards. Duckworth holds up Scrooge's wallet, and several moths flutter out.
- DuckTales (2017): "Living Mummies of Toth-Ra": Launchpad opens up his wallet to pay for the 200 burritos that he ordered for the servants, but all that comes out are a couple of moths.
- Jellystone!: "Chair Me Matey": Parodied. Yogi Bear opens his wallet, and a moth comes out. Yogi asks the moth if he can borrow 30 dollars. The moth agrees, but opens their wallet only to find an even smaller moth. The first moth asks the smaller moth if they can borrow 30 dollars, but the smaller moth just flies away.
- Johnny Bravo: When Johnny does this in "The Perfect Gift", you can hear the moth say in a tiny voice: "I'm free! Free!"
- Mickey Mouse: The Nifty Nineties: A pair of moths fly out of Mickey’s money purse when he pays for tickets to see a vaudeville show.
- Mighty Mouse: "When Mousehood Was in Flower" uses the old "moths flying out of wallet to indicate poverty" gag when Pearl Pureheart's father protests to Oil Can Harry that he's too poor to pay his taxes.
- OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: "I Am Dendy": Parodied. K.O. tries to pull a quarter out of his pocket, but a few moths come out instead. He cries out "NO! MY MOTH COLLECTION!" and is briefly distracted trying to catch them.
- Rocky and Bullwinkle does this in one chapter of "Box Top Robbery", where Bullwinkle happens to have one of them when he opened his wallet containing twenty-seven cents.
- Schoolhouse Rock!: "$7.50 Once A Week": A moth flies out of the boy's pocket when he looks for money, not knowing that he has already spent his entire allowance.
- Screen Songs: "Romantic Melodies" (with an appearance by Betty Boop) shows a pig open a change purse and a moth flies out of it (for some reason the sound of a bird tweeting can be heard).
- Squirrel Boy: "A Line in the Sandwich": When Rodney pulls out his empty wallet, a leaf flies out.
