Here's a precursor to The Flintstones.  From Life magazine, 1929.  Via Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.

"I just don't like the idea of a crystal ball deciding my future."  From Dark Shadows ep. 49 and Shadowland, 1923.

A precursor to Close Encounters of the Third Kind?  From Mount Wachusett Community College's 1971 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to the Elder Scrolls' warrior-poet deity Vivec.  From AFU Newsletter, 1984.

Kafka's The Metamorphosis didn't come out until 1915, but here's Gregor Samsa in the University of Mississippi's 1897 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to the morphing buildings in Dark City.  From Purple Parrot, 1941.

Here's a precursor to the "First Year Bible" in Nashville Bible School's 1910 yearbook.  It's Bible Stories in World of One Syllable by M. A. B., 1878.

From Illinois Woman's College's 1915 yearbook.

Before it started "Raining Men," it was erupting women.  From Southern Methodist University's 1928 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to the "What's in your bag?" trope.  From University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's 1911 yearbook.

They tell us the Conga line dance came to the U.S. in the 1930s, but note this from three decades earlier.  From Trilby by George du Maurier, 1894.

Here's a precursor to the Little Free Library, reported in The Children's Newspaper, 1932.

Here's a precursor to the classic "I don't want to be a witch!" illustrations.  From Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by John R. Neill, 1914.

Before the film 9 1/2 Weeks, there was the film of Elinor Glyn's Three Weeks.  From Nebraska Wesleyan University's 1909 yearbook.

Mister Potato Eraserhead Baby?  From the Duluth Evening Herald, 1903.

Before "this could be us, but you playin'," there was "I loves my baseball, but oh you bowlin'."  From the Duluth Evening Herald, 1909.

A precursor to Terry Gilliam's Brazil.  From Starting Points in Language Skills C, 1977.

Here's a precursor to I Dream of Jeannie, from The Children's Newspaper, 1919.

Here's a precursor to fandom's romantic pairings, known as "shipping."  Merriam-Webster traces the phenomenon to an X-Files fan forum in 1996, and before that there were shippings of Kirk and Spock from Star Trek, but of course the phenomenon is as old as time.  Here's one from 1920: "Will Cortes sleep with Columbus?"  From The Children's Newspaper, 1920.

Here's a precursor to Why Paint Cats.  From Lilliput Lyrics by William Brighty Rands and illustrated by Charles Robinson (1899).