Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks

"What manner of mad scientist neglects his flasks of colored liquid? Next you'll question the Van de Graaff generator in the middle of the room — and where will that leave us?"

— Professor Lupin Madblood, Narbonic

What's the best way to visually demonstrate that a character is a scientist, mad or otherwise? Why, with tons and tons of flasks and beakers, of course! These are usually crammed everywhere conceivable in the scientist's laboratory, connected with spiraling glass tubing and usually filled with bubbling colored liquids, even if an experiment isn't actually in progress, and typically it's just there to be set dressing. Often, it's there to be dramatically smashed during a fight scene, an experiment gone wrong, or during the Mad Scientist's transformation. Bonus points if the scientist has no need of such chemistry equipment (such as being a physicist or anthropologist for example), and never actually does anything with it. Also, bonus points apply if you do see it in use, but incorrectly. Oftentimes you see Erlenmeyer or volumetric flasks put over a burner in a distillation setup, which is not done (that's what round-bottomed flasks are for, since this shape heats up more evenly, so it's less likely to crack from uneven distribution of heat). One or two condensers (preferably coil, Liebig may work in a pinch) are a must, even if the owner's society doesn't have the technology to make glass tubes.

Many of these overly complicated glassware apparatuses, particularly the tall ones suspended by criss-cross networks of ringstands and clamps, seem to be based on all of the photos that have been taken of the classic 1952 experiment by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey. However, the overall setup of the apparatus can be explained in simple terms that do make logical sense.

Dedicated lab glassware was invented mostly in the mid to late 19th century. Prior to that, distilling vessels such as alembics do date back centuries, but they were made completely of metal and scientists actually used very little glassware, glass-working still being a rare craft reserved for artisans. And until the invention of borosilicate glass in the 1880s (we know it under brand names such as Pyrex), lab glassware, when made of non metallic material such as glass or even earthenware was unreliable due to breaking or cracking when heated. The ubiquitous Erlenmeyer flask wasn't invented until 1860. The retort flask, another ubiquitous and recognizable vessel, was around since the days of alchemy but was originally made of metal. It was actually considered outdated by the time the Liebig condenser was invented in the late 1800s. Despite these facts, chemistry glassware frequently shows up in settings that predate their invention, or futuristic settings where they should probably be considered impractical and primitive. Retort, round bottom, Florence, volumetric, Pasteur, and Erlenmeyer flasks may thus easily show up in a medieval wizard or alchemist's workshop or in a scientist's lab in a far future Space Opera.

They also make for a fun visual should anyone walk behind them, distorting their face into a variety of shapes.

A Sub-Trope of Cow Tools. They're almost required to show up in a Mad Scientist Laboratory. Interestingly enough, despite Pop Culture Osmosis, they would not have been part of the scene dressing in the original literary version of the Ur Example as the book also predates the availability of most of these items.^note The book was written in 1818 but the setting, according to the narrative was sometime in the 1700s. Either way, the predating is true.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The JOJOLands, the group finds a lab room in Rohan's villa examining 'A'A Lava rocks. Usagi takes the time to explain the difference between flasks and beakers.

Comic Books

• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Paula von Gunther's laboratory under Holliday College has several tables covered in glassware, despite the fact that she's never seen working with any of it and her projects are all run on electricity. They are used against her though, by the evil Science "Queen" Atomia who shrinks Paula and her visitors by tossing a concoction into a beaker that vaporizes it into mist in the lab.

Comic Strips

• Brenda Starr: Whenever we visit Basil's home, oversized test tubes and flasks are on display in his greenhouse (or wherever he is living at the moment). We know that he is using them in his methods to extract from orchids a serum that he must constantly take due to his perpetual Soap Opera Disease. They get points due to the fact that occasionally, a random apparatus on display will actually look like a steam distillation setup which is typically used to extract oils and other compounds from plants.

Fan Works

• Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space: Mad Scientist Dr Zarkendorf has the obligatory Mad Scientist Laboratory "equipped with the sophisticated tools of modern science: Jacob's Ladders, Van De Graaf generators, bulky pilot-lit cabinets, poorly-adjusted Bunsen burners, retorts bubbling with sinister chemicals, murky jars holding mutant monstrosities, strung wires with bad insulation."

Films — Animation

• One of the earliest examples of this trope is the Queen's laboratory in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Some red liquid cackles when heated over a bunsen burner.
• In The Pagemaster, a mural depicts Dr. Jekyll (from the book) surrounded by this sort of bric-à-brac. When the characters actually visit Jekyll's mansion, although his "laboratory" is limited to just one table in what appears to be his living room, it's filled to overflowing with all manner of cartoonish-looking lab glassware, none of which Jekyll actually uses (mixing his infamous potion in a martini glass of all things). Memorably, when the characters walk past them, the audience's view of them through the layers of glass and liquid are hideously distorted like in a funhouse mirror - except Horror, who looks ravishingly handsome.
• The Great Mouse Detective: Basil has a chemistry setup in his home, which he actually uses to determine that Fidget's burglary list has come in contact with salt water, leading Basil to deduce that Fidget frequents a sleazy pub "where the sewer meets the riverfront." In fact, when Ratigan snares Basil in his ambush, he chides Basil, "Trouble with the chemistry set, old boy?"
• The All-CGI Cartoon Igor shows chemistry glassware in Dr. Glickenstein's castle, though this Mad Scientist tends to use motors, metallurgy and electricity for creating monsters. Given that the nation of Malaria runs on a Mad Scientist-based economy, the chemistry setup is likely a standard-issue feature of their castles, along with a Torture Cellar and Shark Pool. One early unused poster for the movie even had the letters of the title formed out of spiraling chemical glassware.
• Mr. Ages' laboratory in The Secret of NIMH features a ton of (human-sized) chemistry apparatus filled with bubbling concoctions which he's seen using once, to prepare a medicinal powder for Mrs. Brisby's feverish child.
• Yzma's "secret lab" in The Emperor's New Groove not only features a lot of spiraling glass tubing running throughout the room, but also shelves and shelves of literally a thousand and one bottles of her "poisons" (read: various magical potions). They're all pink in color and are very poorly labelled. Lampshaded by Kronk.
  Kronk: You know, in my defense, your poisons all look alike. You might think about relabeling some of them.
• Dr. Finklestein has some of this kind of stuff in his Mad Scientist Laboratory in The Nightmare Before Christmas, most notably a big, globe-shaped flask with a severed hand floating in it. He never uses any of it, but he does loan it to Jack Skellington along with a microscope to use for his Christmas experiments.
• Rankin/Bass Productions Willy McBean and his Magic Machine opens with the villainous mad scientist gushing over his flasks on a dark and stormy night, even though the plot involves him inventing a time machine that looks like an oversized stopwatch.

Films — Live-Action

• Many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories both in film and television will fill the background of Holmes' Baker Street flat with chemistry equipment. While this is true to the stories, in which Holmes would sometimes use them, in these adaptations, they're usually little more than set dressing. This tendency to overpopulate the flat with chemistry equipment was parodied in Without a Clue, when Reginald Kincaid (posing as Holmes) actually does do something with the chemicals - with hilariously explosive results.
• Universal was quite big on this sort of thing in their science fiction and horror films, particular the films under the Universal Horror umbrella.
  • In Frankenstein (1931), although there isn't an excess of chemistry glassware on hand (promotional stills are another matter), there's still a bit of gratuity with some flasks. Just before bringing the Monster to life, there's a brief bit where Henry Frankenstein goes and pours something into a flask, swishes the contents around, nods in satisfaction, and sets it down. He never does anything with it or returns to it again.
  • In Bride of Frankenstein, quite a few scenes involving Frankenstein's conversations with Dr. Pretorius are filmed so that the two actors are seated or standing with a table covered in excessive lab glassware between them and the camera. Most prominent is an enormous retort (which Universal's prop department would reuse in many films, including the same year's Werewolf of London). The glassware serves no purpose in any of the duo's work, and is just there to be interesting-looking set dressing.
  • Griffin in The Invisible Man (1933), much like his counterpart in the novel, has a bunch of lab glassware on a table in his room at the inn, including a retort that seems to serve no purpose. The only piece of equipment he's ever seen doing anything with is a beaker he mixes something in - and then throws. He has a lot more in his old regular lab, seen when Cranley and Kemp visit it in one scene.
  • In Werewolf of London, botanist Wilfred Glendon has a table in his laboratory (otherwise devoted to electrical equipment, his moon lamp in particular) that features among other things an enormous retort (reused from Bride of Frankenstein), several huge graduated cylinders, racks of test tubes with cotton swabs as stoppers, bottles of various liquids and powders, and the expected conical flasks and beakers. He never uses them (although one publicity still does show the transformed Glendon seeming to do something with the big retort).
  • Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man uses bubbling flasks and beakers of chemicals in its opening credits sequence. None, or very few, appear in the film proper, though.
  • Tarantula!: Deemer's at-home laboratory has an impressive array of big retorts and curly glass tubes.
• The laboratory of Dr. Li in The Brain Stealers is filled with flasks and test tubes filled with bubbling liquids, many which gets smashed to bits by the good doctor's walking stick, during a Trash the Set moment when Li decides to destroy his life's work in order to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
• Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein features a nice array of curvy Victorian retorts and such in the attic laboratory of Peter Cushing's Baron Frankenstein. Loads of bright, colorful liquids and heavy on the dry ice, it's definitely a feast for the eyes.
• In the 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll's laboratory features a long table of curly, curvy flasks, beakers and retorts, none of which he does anything with, focusing exclusively on the stuff on his desk at the opposite end of the room. As a bonus, there's a boiling cauldron heating over a fire for some reason. Pretty much any adaptation of Stevenson's novel will follow this trope, although the '31 film just has the most gloriously over the top example.
• Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed: Jonathan Jacobo's underground laboratory has tons and tons of flasks and beakers filled with bubbling colored liquids.
• The Nutty Professor (1963) begins with some truly glorious Scenery Porn of what appear to be experiments in progress, but are really just there to look cool over the opening credits as various colorful chemicals flow through tubes and bubble in flasks (before they explode). Kelp's laboratory throughout the film is chock full of more of the same, none of which is used (he drinks his concoction from a graduated cylinder). While transforming into Buddy Love, Kelp staggers over to the table containing his eyecatching but functionally useless equipment and smashes it to pieces.
• Sokurah has a lot of (slightly anachronistic) chemistry (alchemical?) equipment in his lab in his castle in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, including a really fancy Crystal Ball. A lot of it comes to a bad end; a table of flasks and beakers is smashed by a wayward swing of the living skeleton's sword, and even more of it gets shattered to bits when a stuffed Apothecary Alligator falls off the wall and lands on it (courtesy of the skeleton's flung shield). Sokurah himself smashes his crystal ball later. The various equipment is just there to look pretty and get smashed; besides the crystal ball, the only thing Sokurah uses is a mortar and pestle.
• In The Black Scorpion, the only thing Dr. José de la Cruz uses his test tubes for is to make tequila.
• I, Monster: Marlowe's laboratory is a treasure trove of Victorian-era lab glassware.
• Frankenstein Conquers the World follows Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man's example and begins with an impressive opening credits sequence of the camera following chemicals flowing through different flasks and tubing. In the Cold Open of the actual movie, meanwhile, Nazi scientist Dr. Lisendorf's lab is filled with a lot of chemistry glassware containing brightly colored liquids. He smashes it all in a rage when Frankenstein's heart is confiscated.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie opens with a close-up shot of flasks filled with steaming, bubbling liquid — then the camera pulls back to show the rest of Dr. Clayton Forrester and his lab. No explanation for the flasks is ever given.
• Darkman: Being a scientist, Westlake has tons of beakers, flasks, test tubes and the like, most of which gets trashed. As Darkman, he salvages what he can to continue his work. Interestingly, during a Montage depicting him working, Sam Raimi makes the interesting stylistic choice to have beakers and test tubes fly by to indicate the passage of time.
• The Splice O' Life genetics lab in Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Although it features real chemistry equipment, there's a cartoonish excess of it (unsurprising given the tone of the movie), with every available flat surface covered in elaborate chemistry setups.
• Friar Lawrence in the 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet has a desk covered in quite a few interesting-looking (and impractical) retorts and bottles, shown prominently during the scene where he is giving Juliet the sleeping potion. The shots of Juliet from Lawrence's P.O.V. make a point of showing her surrounded on all sides by the Italian Renaissance-era style glassware. Interestingly one of the items is a very anachronistic modern Erlenmeyer flask filled with blue liquid.
• The laboratory in Lady Frankenstein is filled with all kinds of glassware. Most of it is filled with some kind of liquid and is linked together and bubbles during the reanimation process, so it may perform some function, but exactly what is unclear.
• The Monster Maker: Even given he is working with bacteria and viruses, Dr. Markoff has a massive amount of glassware in his lab, much of it with Bunsen burners burning under it. One of Maxine's major tasks seems to be monitoring the burners.
• Queen of Outer Space. Flasks filled with colored fluids and bunsen burners left on for no apparent reason are shown in the laboratory used by Zsa Zsa Gabor's character, to cue the audience that she does science stuff, given that she's wearing a side-split dress instead of a Labcoat of Science and Medicine.
• There is a surprising amount of glassware in Count Frankenstein's laboratory in Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, given that his process seems to be entirely electrical in nature.
• The Dark Crystal: Both Aughra's observatory and the Chamber of Life (where the Skeksis drain Podlings of their essence) are filled with all manner of lab glassware and other brick-a-brack. Neither Aughra nor skekTek use them for anything, and they exist only to be smashed (by the Garthim when busting into Aughra's home and by skekUng when he has a breakdown). They are perfectly recognizable lab glassware and almost look out of place for a planet that is A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.... The set designer actually spared some effort to dress the glassware to make it look less like it was purchased from a modern lab supply company. They were given embellishments to make them appear rustic and primitive (as if home-made) instead of mass produced.
• In High Pressure, this is sort of justified, when the inventor with a whole lab full of exotically shaped and surprisingly large beakers is revealed to be both a fraud and insane.
• In Kiss Me Quick!, Dr. Breedlove's Mad Scientist Laboratory is full of chemical flasks that serve no purpose. (Although, truthfully, nothing in that laboratory seems to serve a purpose.)
• Vampire Academy quickly sketches out science lessons, as described by Daniel Lavery of The Toast:
  At the beginning of the movie the main character describes the class schedule at Vampire Academy and there is a roughly three-second shot of a bunch of vampire teens in a laboratory holding up beakers of differently-colored Science Liquids in like, the best and most generic portrayal of Science I have ever seen. No one is doing anything other than holding up a beaker of bright blue or green fluid and looking at it intently. “Ah, yes. There’s the Science we were looking for, right here in this beaker. Tremendous,” and then taking notes.
• The Shadow: Dr. Reinhardt Lane, an atomic physicist, has such a setup in his lab at the Federal Building. While it makes for some neat staging during a big fight scene, he probably doesn't need to do an awful lot of chemistry. And, to make matters worse, it's chemistry of the Technicolor Science variety. He's color blind.

Literature

• In H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man, there's a chapter entitled "The Thousand and One Bottles", wherein Griffin drives Mr. and Mrs. Hall nuts with how much chemistry equipment he sees fit to fill his room at their inn with. And apparently he had to get a lot of his stuff on the fly, since, aside from a rack of test tubes and a laboratory-grade scale, most of the stuff he's using is repurposed from more conventional household items including salad oil bottles.
• Just about any given cover for Frankenstein or The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will have this in full effect. The Bernie Wrightson edition of Frankenstein goes one step further; all depictions of Victor Frankenstein's work area throughout the book are so chock full of glassware that they not only seem to play no role in his work, but realistically, would actually impede him. It has also been mentioned (see intro above), that none of the recognizable lab glassware was even around yet in 1818 at the time Mary Shelly wrote the book, let alone during the time period that the story is allegedly set (Captain Robert Walton's letters are dated in the 17XXs).
• Goosebumps had a few cases of using this trope to sell books, but unfortunately they were often a case of Covers Always Lie (a recurring problem with the series as a whole).
  • The original cover art for Stay Out of the Basement featured a leafy green-skinned human hand reaching out from the titular basement. It was done by Jim Thiesen and was one of the few covers not done by regular artist Tim Jacobus. For the 2003 reprint, the cover art was completely redone, this time by Jacobus. It what basically amounted to a tree wearing clothes holding a flask of orange liquid, with this trope in full effect behind him with a table covered in so many flasks it's difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends. In any case, in the actual book, no chemistry equipment is ever mentioned.
  • The Goosebumps 2000 book Jekyll and Heidi, drawn by Tim Jacobus, shows a man transforming into a kind of pig-faced monster standing amidst tables covered in lab glassware, some filled with green liquid, while a terrified girl watches in the background. While it's far more toned down than Jacobus' effort at the cover for Stay Out of the Basement and does (kind of) represent a scene in the book where Dr. Palmer Jekyll tests a chemical on himself in search of a cure (the actual monster is his daughter Marianne Jekyll and it's less of a Jekyll & Hyde story than it is a werewolf story), the actual lab as described in the book is very utilitarian and the only glassware actually described is the test tube Palmer drinks from.
  • The Gamebook series Give Yourself Goosebumps featured two covers of gratuitous flaskery (is that a word?), and neither really featured any descriptions of such things in the text.
    • Mark Nagata's The Deadly Experiments of Dr. Eeek showed a maniacal chimpanzee in a lab coat squatting on a table covered in glassware (a flask heating over a bunsen burner and a rack of test tubes) mixing chemicals together in test tubes although all the vessels shown contain green liquid, so nothing is actually being mixed. In the actual book, the eponymous Dr. Eeek's lab is presented as relatively utilitarian.
    • Nagata's cover for Diary of a Mad Mummy shows the titular "mad mummy" writing in his diary (helpfully labelled "My Diary"), and on the table in front of him are things similar to the ones on the Dr. Eeek cover: glassware filled with green liquid (Nagata wasn't terribly creative when it came to chemical colors). Thanks to the big blurbs "Choose from over 20 different scary endings!" and "Boo, dude! Reading's a scream!", most of it is obscured, however a postcard set featuring Goosebumps cover art showed the full artwork. In any event, the only bit of chemistry equipment described in the book is a single beaker.

Live-Action TV

• The Avengers (1960s): In one episode Emma Peel has a large collection of these bubbling away in her flat, pretty much for idle amusement on her part.
• Both the heroes' and villains' bases in Bibleman feature flasks and beakers of brightly-colored liquids which they rarely, if ever, use.
• Forever:
  • The killer in the pilot has a home lab in his garage with numerous flasks and beakers with bright purple residue from the aconite plants.
  • Henry's own home lab is mostly an aversion, as his flasks and beakers are visible tucked away in a cabinet, but sometimes a few will be in use. He does have lots of other common laboratory cliches, such as anatomy posters and various once-living things in jars, as well as a fish tank containing Immortal Jellyfish.
• In the Goosebumps (1995) episode "The Haunted Mask," when Carly Beth sneaks into the back room at the costume store, the shopkeeper has a chemistry set on a table for no readily apparent reason which passes by in the foreground. All of the vessels are filled with a bright blue liquid. We later learn he makes the haunted masks himself (and indeed his backstory in the Goosebumps Collector's Cap Book pegs him as a failed chemistry student), but the glassware in the episode doesn't seem to serve much purpose besides being set dressing because the shopkeeper never uses any of it or alludes to its role at all.
• In H.R. Pufnstuf, Dr. Blinky has a laboratory featuring various beakers, flasks, test tubes, retorts, etc., which he uses in the first episode to brew a magic potion for Jimmy and Pufnstuf to use against Witchypoo and her sentient tree minions. One of these test tubes is sentient.
• In M*A*S*H, the mad science and the over-abundence of flasks is seen in Hawkeye and Trapper John (later, BJ), and their various attempts to set up a moonshine distillery using purloined medical equipment. The latest-model still, set up after a temporarily maddened doctor smashed up the original, is a riot of flasks and tubing.
• Mr. Bean: In "Back to School, Mr Bean", an unattended laboratory arrangement of various connected pieces of glassware attracts Mr Bean's attention. He finds a beaker of liquid nearby, and pours it into an opening in the highly complex arrangement. The glassware starts vibrating furiously, and Mr Bean makes his escape, just before an explosion is heard. Later, a young boy who was nearby is seen covered from head to toe with blue powder.
• In early episodes of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, the Monster of the Week would drink green fluid from one of these to grow giant. This replaced the Gingaman shots of the monsters drinking alcohol from containers to grow. However, it was only for the first few episodes; they quickly stopped bothering to replace the scenes, leaving no explanation of how the monsters grew (likely an aftereffect of the show's Troubled Production).
• Sherlock: Sherlock's kitchen table is filled with lab flasks whenever he conducts chemical experiments at home.

Magazine

• Analog: On page 33 of the April 1941 issue, the first page for Isaac Asimov's "Reason", there is an image where robots are assembled. Despite robots being a mechanical construction, there are retort, round-bottom, and Erlenmeyer flasks, as well as a case of vials.

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks: In "Swap Week", Mr. Boynton has, for some reason, a lot of test tubes and flasks out in his biology laboratory. Miss Brooks absentmindedly adds two test tubes together, and hides the result under a blanket when the test tube starts to bubble-up.

Toys

• Doctor Dreadful, the Slime, Snails, and Mutant Tails Spear Counterpart to the Easy Bake Oven, thrived on this. Subverted in that they were actually (usually) functional, although they were clearly invoking the "loads and loads of lab glassware" idea many people have of mad scientists.
• The Aurora models in the 1960s based on various horror and science fiction properties (particularly Universal Horror) loved including gratuitous flasks and other such brick-a-brack wherever it could as part of the models' scenery, justified or not. They've been reissued many times, most notably by Polar Lights.
  • Most famously, "The Bride of Frankenstein* included a shelf behind the Bride's operating table which featured a very large retort (referred to as a "distilling flask" in the instructions) with a distilling head attached to a flask by a glass tube and a bottle with plastic "smoke" coming out of it, and on the floor were a measuring cup and a "bound flask" (as per the instructions, a large, round vessel with metal bands around on it), and a big, curved bulbous condenser.
  • "Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde" (based, more or less, on the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) was a little more conservative. Besides the Erlenmeyer flask being held by the transforming Jekyll, there were, on a rather smallish table, a big round flask and a smaller one connected by a tube, a rack of test tubes, and a knocked over beaker complete with "spilled chemicals." The box art depicted a lot more goodies on the table, and many people were disappointed by the paltry offerings of the original kit, so a few third party companies have, in the last few years, been offering "expansion sets" of even more flasks patterned after the ones on the box art, to make Jekyll's little table less bare.
  • "The Witch" (not based on anything in particular) features the usual big cauldron and assortment of potions in jugs.
  • The Monster Scenes line of model kits, released alongside the previously described models and eventually discontinued thanks to Moral Guardians, featured a character named Dr. Deadly. Deadly himself didn't really come with anything, but there was an accessory set called "Gruesome Goodies" which featured the usual flask, beaker and test tubes with racks, but also included, of all things, a titration burette with a stand for it and a very large jar containing a "sabre tooth rabbit."
    • The fanged rabbit was apparently supposed to be used as an accessory for Monster Scenes' Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kit (which was only released in Canada for some reason); the idea being that the rabbit had been given some of the "Jekyll juice" as a test.
• Aurora never did a model kit based off of The Invisible Man (either the novel or the Claude Rains film), so Moebius Models did an Aurora-themed kit called "H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man." As its name implies, it's based more on the original novel than the Universal film, and they apparently drew on the chapter titled "The Thousand and One Bottles" for inspiration, because dear old Mr. Invisible (posed in the middle of removing the wrappings which render him visible) have so much stuff that he puts Aurora's efforts to shame. Not only is there a table with a retort, a graduated cylinder, a mortar and pestle and a flask with "smoke" coming out of it (similar to the bottle in Aurora's Bride of Frankenstein), but also an adjacent bookshelf crammed with loads of beakers, bottles and books, plus a human skull and a terrarium with partially-invisible lab rats. Not quite the "thousand and one" vessels from Wells' book, but it's a lot.
• Silent Screamers was a toyline put out by Aztech Toys and later Mezco which focused on silent horror and sci-fi properties (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, etc.), and Mezco did one based very loosely on the 1920 John Barrymore Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The accompanying display base was two-sided; a street scene for Hyde and a lab scene with a table for Jekyll. The Jekyll side came with two beakers, a long-necked flask Erlenmeyer flask, a large round flask, a small round flask, a distinng flask, and a rack of test tubes, from which the individual test tubes could be removed. The flasks were all also designed to be interchangeable with a stand for "heating" chemicals over an included candle.
• Diamond Select did two sets featuring the same chemistry equipment:
  • The first was a figure of Grandpa Munster from The Munsters. He came with a big retort filled with yellow "liquid" on a stand, a beaker, three labelled, stoppered flasks labelled "Rain" (blue), "Love Potion" (Green) and "Dragon's Blood" (purple, oddly enough), a test tube rack with removable test tubes (similar to Silent Screamers' Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde above), and a big graduated cylinder.
  • They also did did a variation on their Mr. Hyde from Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, featuring a figure of Boris Karloff as Dr. Jekyll. He came with (mostly) the same goodies as Grandpa, with differences in the colors of the "liquids" inside them (notably the contents of the retort became green), one of the flasks was discarded in favor of a really big syringe, neither of the remaining two were labelled anymore and one was painted silver to suggest it was made of metal.
• Todd McFarlane's Monsters was one of McFarlane Toys' many attempts to reinvent classic (i.e. Public Domain) monsters, and they did two Frankenstein themed sets. The first was simply called "Frankenstein," and came with a hunchbacked assistant (named Igor, of course) and McFarlane's interpretation Frankenstein's Monster. The second set, "Dr. Frankenstein," came with the scientist himself and a second, two-headed creation. The two playsets were connectable. Although the first one only came with one measly Erlenmeyer flask, averting this trope, the second one outdid itself with more glassware (a beaker, a king of oblong flask, a distilling flask and a test tube). Bizarrely, the chemistry equipment from both sets was made of clear blue plastic painted silver, suggestive more of metal than glass.

Video Games

• ANNO: Mutationem: The Consortium's Elaborate Underground Base holds several rooms with tubes and flasks containing various substances being studied.
• Dr. Andonuts from EarthBound has several beakers and flasks on both of the desks in his lab, despite only being shown working with machines in the game.
• In the SNES Jurassic Park game, there's one room in the visitor's center that has shelves and shelves of flasks and test tubes. Neither they nor the room they're in serve any purpose to the story or the gameplay. You can't do anything in the room except look at the pretty bubbling chemicals.
• During the Mad Doctor stage in Mickey Mania, flasks, test tubes and retorts are used as scrolling foreground filler. Mickey does eventually have to mix some chemicals in a hilariously oversized beaker to blow up a door.
• Monster Spawners in Monster Hunter (PC) for Blob Monster enemies resembles tables full of flasks, test tubes, and assorted chemicals. Appropriately, when it begins creating a new monster it will emit noises of bubbling liquid.
• In Narc, there are giant flasks and beakers (which can be shot and blown up) in Dr. Spike Rush's "clandestine drug lab."
• Find the Cure!! makes sure to note that the supply closet is filled with "beakers and jars of various chemicals."
• When exploring wrecks in Subnautica, you will occasionally come across bits of science-y glassware, which have no use in-game other than decorating your base.

Web Comics

• Narbonic: Seems to be something that comes with the territory if you're a Mad Scientist in this setting. Justified somewhat for Helen Narbon, whose primary specialty seems to be genetically engineered monsters, but Lupin Madblood has them in abundance as well despite being more of a robotics guy and therefore having no particular use for them. Dave actually brings this up at one point, and Madblood's response suggests he keeps them around mostly for the aesthetic.
• In El Goonish Shive, Tedd pictures himself holding a test tube when Sarah mentions wanting to be his lab assistant even though he doesn't use them for his experimentation.

Web Original

• This comes up a couple times in Welcome to Night Vale in relation to Omnidisciplinary Scientist Carlos (who also wears a labcoat almost constantly). In one episode, when he tells Cecil what he's been working on, he just describes things such as, "standing in front of a row of beakers, with different colored liquids." In another episode, he's fascinated by a vision of "endless rows of Erlenmeyer flasks, and every one held a liquid, and all of the liquids were bubbling..."
• World War II: The set is redressed with these for the "Nazis on Crystal Meth" special.

Western Animation

• Arcane: League of Legends: Singed's volatile laboratory contains the materials into making Shimmer.
• SWAT Kats:
  • Dr. Viper's laboratory in "The Giant Bacteria" is pretty impressive to behold, featuring retorts, racks of test tubes, flasks, beakers and even a microscope that for some reason has smoke pouring out of the eyepiece (!). Besides this, bottles and flasks are stuffed into boxes and cubby holes everywhere in the background. Interestingly, production notes called for even more chemistry equipment to be seen, but for some reason the animators didn't get the message.
  • Professor Hackle's lab is especially egregious. Although a little more toned down than Viper's, he nevertheless has a table on which can be seen a retort and several flasks and test tubes. One problem. Hackle is a machinist/roboticist, so what he needs chemistry equipment for is anyone's guess. They're just there to inform us he's, like, a scientist and such, even though the operating tables and Kenneth Strickfadden-esque machinery filling the rest of the room do the job just fine on their own.
  • The Pastmaster has some of this kind of stuff on a table in his tower in "Bride of the Pastmaster," but he never does anything with it, instead using a big cauldron in the middle of the room.
  • Megakat Biochemical Labs as seen in "Katastrophe" has shelves and shelves of "katalysts" in identical stoppered flasks with numbered labels. In all its other appearances, it's more toned down.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • In "On Leather Wings", when Batman confronts Dr. Kirk Langstrom, there's a long table covered in lab glassware, in particular two huge globes of purple liquid that connect to one another and nothing else, seemingly serving no purpose. Langstrom uses nothing on the table, instead taking the formula he uses to become ManBat out of his Lab Coat Of Science And Medicine. When he transforms, he of course smashes everything on the table, then picks up the table itself and throws it at Batman for good measure.
  • An ever more complicated-looking array of flasks, test tubes and beakers connected by spiraling glass tubes is seen in "Terror in the Sky". Oddly, all the liquid in them is green (perhaps the colorists were lazy). Once again, Langstrom doesn't do anything with them, but at least this time, they don't get smashed.
  • In "I Am The Night", after Gordon gets wounded because Batman didn't get there in time, the Dark Knight expresses his frustration and self-doubt by flipping over a lab bench in the Batcave.

• In one episode of X-Men: The Animated Series, Morph is performing a play version of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde onstage, using his shapeshifting powers for the show. Whoever the propmaster for the play was went above and beyond the call of duty, considering Morph's lab table is covered in tons of beakers of colored liquids. Somewhat justified in that Dr. Jekyll is a late Victorian biochemist.
• Parodied in Tiny Toon Adventures in the episode "Hare-Raising Night." There's a panning shot of what appears to be Dr. Gene Splicer's laboratory, with a bunch of spiraling glass tubing and oddly-shaped chemistry equipment (flasks, beakers, etc.) in the foreground... only for the pan to continue and reveal it's just a painting, titled "Dad's Place." Dr. Splicer's actual laboratory is a surprisingly mundane office building (the giant vat of "gene juice" aside).
• In a Chuck Jones-era Tom and Jerry short where Jerry concocts a Super-Speed potion, in the background there are a bunch of flasks for aesthetic purposes.
• In TaleSpin, Buzz's laboratory at Khan Industries featured tons and tons of flasks and other chemistry glassware so enormous it called to mind Mr. Ages' human-sized apparatus in The Secret of NIMH. He never uses any of it, really, as almost all of his work revolves around robotics and machinery (in particular he invents a rocket pack and a primitive helicopter).
• Expect this to crop up in almost any scientist's lab in The Simpsons, Professor Frink in particular. Meanwhile, in the second Treehouse of Horror episode, when Mr. Burns and Smithers descend into Burns' Mad Scientist Laboratory, they pass a worktable in the foreground featuring loads of glassware and a human brain in a dish. As in The Pagemaster, as they pass behind them, the audience's views of their bodies become distorted, stretched and squashed when viewed through the liquids.
• Three different MGM short cartoons have long gag shots of characters being sucked through an elaborate assembly of glassware, being stretched/squashed/otherwise distorted as they go: the Happy Harmonies short "Bottles", the one-shot "The Bookworm Turns", and the Tom and Jerry short "Switchin' Kitten".
• In The Smurfs (1981), Papa Smurf and Gargamel's respective labs are always filled with loads of recognizable Florence and Erlenmeyers. The question is, where do they obtain it from? There is no Glassblower Smurf as far as we know. And in this time period, most containers and vessels for liquids were still made out of lathe shaped baked clay. And any vessels for heating liquids had to be made of metal.

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