The Tree in a Test Tube

The Tree in a Test Tube is a 1942 short film produced by the U. S. Department of Agriculture and distributed by the U.S. Forest Service, featuring Laurel and Hardy, with narration read by MGM narrator and producer Pete Smith.

The props demonstrate the omnipresence of wood products in the American economy, including paper, cellulose-based artificial leather, rayon, witch hazel, and bioplastics in consumer items (this was in the early days of mass-produced plastic, before petrochemical plastics became widespread).

The Rogue Song (1930), made in Technicolor and featuring the duo in their only other known professional color footage, is now considered a lost film, although a number of fragments have survived; some home movies of the two in the 1950s also exist in color.

Their routine lasts around five minutes and was shot silent; Laurel does not audibly speak, but Hardy makes two utterances (laughter and an utterance of "Ain't that the truth!")

Included in the documentary footage are visits to a research laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin and a demonstration at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in which an elephant stands on a piece of laminated veneer lumber without breaking it.