In May 2007 in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, Howard Davies-Carr filmed his sons in an armchair. One-year-old Charlie nibbled three-year-old Harry’s finger, bit harder the second time, and both boys were giggling again within seconds. The 56-second file was too large to email to the boys’ grandfather in the United States, so Howard uploaded it to YouTube as a simple way to pass it along. By the time he thought to delete it or make it private, it had escaped. By late 2009 it had passed Evolution of Dance as the most viewed video on the platform, a title it held until 2012.

This episode follows what that accident did to an ordinary family. Strangers asked a toddler for autographs, and the boys grew up shy about a fame they could not remember earning. Howard and Shelley turned down talk shows and kept Harry, Charlie, and younger brothers Jasper and Rupert out of the spotlight, while licensing the clip itself through the agency Viral Spiral. The story runs from a copy found on Osama bin Laden’s computer to an NFT auction in May 2021.

• Advertising revenue from the single clip topped 100,000 pounds in 2011 alone, and the profits helped the family buy a new house.
• Shelley Davies-Carr credited the boys’ British accents for the clip’s early spread among American college students.
• The Office referenced the video, and Jimmy Kimmel’s 2014 post-Oscar special cast Chris and Liam Hemsworth as Harry and Charlie in a mock movie trailer.
• 3F Music, which also bought the Disaster Girl and Overly Attached Girlfriend NFTs, paid over $760,000 for the original.
• The video was supposed to be deleted from YouTube after the sale, but the buyer let it stay, and it had passed 888 million views by late 2025.