Here's Hans Waldemar Wessolowski's 1930 precursor to the fruit-shaped helmets that descend from the sky in Kamen Rider Gaim.  (We saw the illustration here.)

Four decades before the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." dance, it's mentioned in this yearbook inscription alongside some highly questionable "girls."  "Don't forget a certain 'Y.M.C.A.' dance, and the oversupply of girls(???)"  From Bay Path College's 1936 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to those "old library" scented candles.  "That smell in chapel," from Otterbein College's 1913 yearbook.

Artificial lightning from Purple Parrot, 1924, and artificial thunder from The Addams Family, 1965.

Here's a precursor to the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots toy.  From Der Bärenspiegel, 1931.

Here's a precursor to Doctor Dolittle.  From Le Charivari, 1890.

In 1977, George Burns played God in the film Oh, God!  Here he is, apparently, five years later, though strangely smaller and transparent.  From The Lighted Pathway, 1982.

Warhol gets all the glory, but artists have been doing tomato cans for as long as there have been tomato cans.  From Indiana University's 1908 yearbook.

Before exfoliating face masks, there was the "Foliate mask."  From The Grotesque in Church Art by T. Tindall Wildridge, 1899.

Here's a precursor to the Jefferson Airplane album After Bathing at Baxter's, in which a quirky airplane incorporates an entire house.  From The Judge, 1920.  [Thank you, Jonathan!]

The first telegraph.  From Le Charivari, 1889.

Five years before Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  From Montclair's 1972 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to "chair yoga" (developed by Lakshmi Voelker-Binder in 1982).  From Purple Parrot, 1944.

23 years before the debut of the M&M's mascot, there was this fellow in Purple Parrot, 1941.

A precursor to The X Files.  From Saucers, Space & Science, 1971.

Here's a precursor to drag queen Maddelynn Hatter's ensemble being upstaged by a prop in The Boulet Brothers' Dragula season 3.  From three decades earlier, in Aurora, 1981.  Why can't we learn from history?

Here's a precursor to Philip K. Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," about taking vacations as another personality.  From The Problem Club, by Barry Pain.  (Courtesy of Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.)

Here's a precursor to how it feels to run a blog.  From Michigan State's 1947 yearbook.