Here's a precursor to the quotation craze — an author of "bits of books" from The Man in the Moon, 1847.

Here's a precursor to Prof. Henry Higgins and flower girl Eliza Doolittle of Pygmalion (1912), from an advertisement in A Lawful Crime by Edward Kent, 1899.  The illustration is by Phil May.

A precursor to 1958's hula hoop, from a 1900 issue of The Lady's Realm.

Here's what we might call a precursoral opposite.  In The Shining (1980), countless variations of the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" cover hundreds of typewritten pages, revealing that Jack Torrance is disturbed.  In a 1908 issue of The Windsor Magazine, the blankness of a page reveals that someone is disturbed.

The caption reads, "'You have been disturbed!' she cried sorrowfully, as she took in the blankness of the page."

Hundreds of years before the phenomenon of walking while texting, folks were glued to windows, insensible to the wonders around them.  We find proof in Arthur's Home Magazine, 1876.  The caption reads: "She stood leaning against a window, but not seeing the beauty that lay stretched before her."

Here's a precursor to comedian Steve Martin's arrow-through-the-head gag, from Bachelor Ballads and Other Lazy Lyrics by Harry A. Spurr and illustrated by J. Hassall (1899).  However, we understand that the gag technically traces back to the play The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607), with this stage direction: "Enter Rafe, with a forked arrow through his head."

The phenomenon of sunlight shining haloes through clouds of ice crystals helped to inspire John Dee's famous hieroglyphic monad.

Here's a precursor to the Teletubbies sun, from Lilliput Lyrics by William Brighty Rands, 1899.

Here's a precursor to the "unfollow" and "unfriend" phenomenon of social media, from Springhaven: A Tale of the Great War by Rochard Doddridge Blackmore, 1888.  The caption reads, "I am not at all happy at losing dear friends."

Here's a precursor to Edward Albee's title Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), from Frank Sullivan in a 1933 issue of The New Yorker.  Sullivan refers to reading a page "to the tune of 'Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?'"

A decade before Stanislavski's "system" and three decades before Strasberg's "method," we find "a modern method" for acting in The Lady's Realm (1901) by the mysterious M. M. M.  But mostly we just like the wonky font.

Here's a precursor to the animal print craze of the 1960s Bohemian movement, from Punch, 1867.

This bit by Frank Sullivan ...

If [Grandpa] was in a good humor when he awoke, he would take us youngsters up to Dick Canfield's to play games, but as he was never in a good humor when he awoke, we never went to Dick Canfield's to play games.

No family New Year’s get-together was complete without an appearance by Uncle Carlyle. Unfortunately, as there was no one named Carlyle anywhere in the extended family, we had to be content with a slightly incomplete New Year’s. Nevertheless, we had quite a good time.

"The world in which we live[:] the abominable, sentimental, mob-ruled world of cheap newspapers and cheaper minds, where every imbecile is articulate and every folly tolerated, where the arts are dying out and the intellect is scorned, where every little cheap-jack knows what he likes and what he thinks.  Our moralities, our democracy, have taught us to suffer fools gladly, and now we suffer from an overplus of fools." —The Case of the Gilded Fly (1944)

"What odd, misshapen, ugly things I made."  If only Etsy had existed back in 1719.  From Daniel Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

This Nebraska/Ohio bit by Frank Sullivan ...

He made a few simple calculations, as a result of which he pioneered to Nebraska, so that when the next dust storm came up, instead of being blow [sic] from Ohio back to Holcomb Landing, he was blown from Nebraska back to Ohio, where he wanted to be.

I was puzzled to note that there is a place in Nebraska called Town in Ohio, Nebraska. But it turns out there is a simple explanation: it seems they named it after a town in Ohio.

This "Black Death Record" is a precursor to the music label Black Death Records, from The Grange of St. Giles, the Bass by Jane Stewart Smith, 1898.

Here's a precursor to the modern computer from The Chase of the Golden Plate by Jacques Futrelle (1906).  The caption reads: "Suddenly he stopped and turned upon The Thinking Machine."

The unshakable Jonathan Caws-Elwitt discovered a precursor to the twelve British meals as depicted in the hilarious series Look Around You (2002).  Below are the twelve meals, followed by an account from Frank Sullivan's In One Ear (1933), including the succession of "bites" called tiffin, miffin, hiffin, and giffin.

Jonathan Caws-Elwitt shares a precursor from "A Trip to Hollywood," by Frank Sullivan. Cf. Python's famous "I'd like to have an argument, please" sketch.

"I am here to see the sights, and I have read so much in the papers about the famous arguments that you and Mrs. Weissmuller have, that I was hoping to see one before I left."

"I'll see if I can fix it," Mr. Weissmuller said pleasantly. . . . "Lupe! Lupe!"

[...]

"What you want now, John-ee?" she exploded. "Always you call, 'Lupe, Lupe, Lupe.' Why do you not leave me alone?"

"This gentleman wanted to see you and me have a little spat."

"I am beezy sweeming," stormed Miss Velez. "I have no time to spat wiz you."