I seem to have confused a few folks with my phraseology. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared in around 32 silent shorts for the Hal Roach Studio. The number is a bit arguable since there were a couple in which they were on-screen for less than thirty seconds and since a few later ones were made in both sound and silent versions.
The second Roach film in which both appeared was Duck Soup and it's the first film you could claim was "A Laurel and Hardy film" as opposed to a comedy in which the two men both happened to have roles. But then the next few films to contain both men are in the latter category. They're just two unteamed actors in a movie and in some, they don't even have scenes together.
Then the eighth Roach film to house both guys — Do Detectives Think? — really looks like what we think of as a Laurel and Hardy movie. If you see it, you think, "Aha! The studio finally realized that those two guys should be starring as partners!" But then their ninth film and several thereafter are back in the "two guys in the same film" category. Their eleventh joint Roach job — The Second Hundred Years — has them teamed…and thereafter, but for one or two missteps, they were.
Douglas McEwan writes to remind me why Putting Pants on Philip, which was made after all of these, is often referred to as the first official Laurel and Hardy movie…
The reason Putting Pants on Philip is sometimes called "The First Laurel & Hardy" movie is because Stan Laurel called it such to John McCabe, apparently repeatedly. McCabe quotes Stan's assertion that Putting Pants on Philip is The First Official Laurel & Hardy in both Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy and in Babe. He probably quotes it in his The Comedy World of Stan Laurel also, though I haven't read that one, so I can't state it. I reread Babe last week, and in that McCabe expresses skeptism about whether Putting Pants deserves this appelation or not, but he does repeat once more that Stan felt it was the first. Now, as to why Stan thought of it as such, I have no idea, but Stan's widely-published assertion is the reason others do.
You're right…and it points up how maddening it can sometimes be to chronicle film history since you'd think Stan Laurel would be an unimpeachable source as to what the first Laurel and Hardy movie was. I suppose he was recalling some burst of special promotion on Putting Pants on Philip which made it seem in his mind like their first official film together. But he did tell that to John McCabe who printed it in Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy, which was for a long time the definitive book on The Boys — mainly because it was the only one. I just checked my copy of McCabe's The Comedy World of Stan Laurel and Putting Pants on Philip does not seem to be mentioned in there.
Doug also wrote to thank me for cautioning folks against believing what Jerry Lewis says on that new DVD set. Mr. Lewis seems to believe — and I can't imagine where he got this — that Hardy was an unemployed stagehand at the Roach studio when someone got the idea to star him with Laurel. Uh, Jerry, Oliver "Babe" Hardy had appeared in dozens of movies (a lot more than Stan, many of them for Roach) before teaming up with Laurel. Hardy was actually one of the workingest actors in silent movies before being paired with Laurel. I'll betcha the folks who shot Lewis for that DVD knew the truth but feared making him angry if they corrected him.
It's amazing how wrong some folks are on what is readily-available film history. Some years ago, there was a Laurel and Hardy documentary hosted by Dom DeLuise in which Dom solemnly told the spurious tale of Laurel sitting at Hardy's bedside and holding his hand as Hardy died. Didn't happen. Stan was not there and I can't imagine how anyone could do enough research to write any narration about Laurel and Hardy and not know that. It's pretty clear in McCabe's first book and it makes you want to do one of those exasperated Oliver Hardy looks towards the camera.