Abecedarian : Precursors

Precursors

October 4, 2019

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From Kladderadatsch, 1933. Previously, we saw this precursor to Jerry Lee Lewis playing the piano with his foot.

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#vintage illustration #political cartoon #uncle sam #piano #illustration #jerry lee lewis #melting piano

September 30, 2019

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Here's a precursor to "Sunglasses at Night."

From Nebelspalter, 1916.

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#vintage illustration #anthropomorphism #clock #night #sunglasses at night

September 25, 2019

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Here's a precursor to David Lynch's comic strip "The Angriest Dog in the World," about a dog "so angry he cannot move; he cannot eat; he cannot sleep; he can just barely growl; bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis." This vintage angriest dog appears in Johns Hopkins' 1895 yearbook.

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#vintage illustration #dog #vintage yearbook #yearbook #illustration #angriest dog

September 18, 2019

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Here's a precursor to Annie Dillard's marvelous Teaching a Stone to Talk. It's the "Voice of a Pebble" in The Voices by Warren Sumner Barlow, 1870.

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#teaching a stone to talk #pebble

September 17, 2019

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Here's a way to experience that levitating legless chair, but with no chair at all!

From Millikin's 1930 yearbook.

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#vintage yearbook #yearbook #1930s #vintage men #men #lap sitting

September 16, 2019

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Dancing the jitterbug, we presume, but this was over 30 years before Cab Calloway's song "Jitterbug."

From the State Female Normal School, Farmville, Va.'s 1902 yearbook.

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#vintage illustration #anthropomorphism #vintage yearbook #yearbook #insects #dancing bugs #bugs #dancing insects #jitterbug

September 13, 2019

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At first glance, we thought she was flying and a precursor to Mary Poppins. From Nebelspalter, 1917.

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#vintage illustration #mary poppins

Here's a precursor to the "booze cruise." From Lustige Blätter, 1905.

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#vintage illustration #ship #alcohol #giant bottle #booze cruise

September 11, 2019

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Here's a precursor to the pedal exercisers for one's armchair or desk. From Le Charivari, 1890.

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#vintage illustration #cycling #exercise

Here's a precursor to Wednesday Addams and her Marie Antoinette doll. From Nebelspalter, 1917.

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#vintage illustration #severed head #addams family #doll #wednesday addams #marie antoinette

September 8, 2019

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There's a precursor to the TV show phenomenon of "Jumping the Shark" (of course named after the Season 5 episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie waterskied over a shark and thus outed the writers as having run out of ideas). It's what we might call "Unchaining the Monkey." Of the classic sitcoms we revisit, Bewitched lasted the very longest before throwing in the towel amd ushering in a chimp. That show made it deep into Season 5 before giving up. The worst offender, though the one show with the very best excuse, was Gilligan's Island, which made it only two episodes before going ape. But at least the jungle island setting made the casting seem less desperate. Frankly, the most painful offender of this bunch is Hogan's Heroes: a chimp supposedly having escaped from a zoo nearby the German prisoner of war camp is dressed up and becomes history's most reliable courier of the Underground resistance movement. It's tearfully unfunny.

Classic sitcoms in order of ability to delay the monkey:

Gilligan's Island - "Voodoo Something to Me," Season 1, Episode 3
The Addams Family - "Morticia Joins the Ladies League," Season 1, Episode 6
The Munsters - "Come Back, Little Googie," Season 1, Episode 25
Green Acres - "Horse, What Horse?" Season 1, Episode 29
I Dream of Jeannie - "Fly Me to the Moon," Season 3, Episode 1
Hogan's Heroes - "Monkey Business," Season 3, Episode 29
The Beverly Hillbillies - "The Gorilla," Season 5, Episode 6
Bewitched - "Going Ape," Season 5, Episode 22

Honorable mention: Monkee Davy Jones appeared on The Brady Bunch in "Getting Davy Jones" (Season 3, Episode 12). This honorable mention notwithstanding, we respectfully disgree with TVTropes that "Everything's Better with Monkeys."

#monkey #chimp #television #tvland #class sitcoms #going ape #list

August 30, 2019

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Here's a precursor to "the question mark of Damocles" (Saul Tanpepper, Occupied). From North Texas' 1918 yearbook.

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#vintage illustration #vintage yearbook #yearbook #cutlery #question mark #fork

Here's a precursor to the non-surgical, instant results promised by How to Be Your Own Cat. From Le Journal Pour Rire, 1852.

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#vintage illustration #hybrid #human headed #cat people #cat man

August 29, 2019

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Here's a precursor to the Doomsday Clock (supposedly invented in 1947, but we know better, eh?). From Nebelspalter, 1915.

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#vintage illustration #war and peace #doomsday clock

August 20, 2019

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Here's a precursor to Laura Palmer's "meanwhile" pose in Twin Peaks. From Salem's 1960 yearbook.

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#vintage yearbook #yearbook #Twin Peaks #laura palmer #twin peaks precursor

August 16, 2019

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Here's a precursor to The Fly. From Hamilton's 1896 yearbook.

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#vintage illustration #vintage yearbook #hybrid #yearbook #human insect #illustration #bug man

August 15, 2019

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The so-called "news" that technology changes us was actually fresh back in 1889. In this panel, the length of a man's legs adapts to the height of his pennyfarthing, and another man's ears have grown bigger due to his use of the telephone. From Le Charivari, 1889.

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