Here's a precursor to The Flintstones.  From Life magazine, 1929. 

"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.

Before Eat, Pray, Love, there was Hop, Ride, Look, Eat.  From The Companion Book for Day In and Day Out by O'Donnell, Scharschug & Carey, 1941.

Here's a precursor to Mr. Potato Head.  From the Daily Mirror, 1917.

Today, there's a war on plastic bags, but back in 1917, doing without paper bags was the issue.  From the Daily Mirror, 1917.

Before Soupy Sales appeared on The Gong Show, Gong Soups were apparently shown on sale.  (You see what I did there.)  From Daily Mirror, 1917.  

Before the Sharknado there was the eelnado.  From Cartwheels by Thorn & Irwin, 1977.

Before Eat, Pray, Love, there was Eat, Walk, Jump, Fly.  From The Companion Book for Day In and Day Out by O'Donnell, Scharschug & Carey, 1941.

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

Before Eat, Pray, Love, there was Run, Walk, Laugh, Fly.  From The Companion Book for Day In and Day Out by O'Donnell, Scharschug & Carey, 1941.

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.