Here's a precursor to the joke about the six-inch pianist.  From Popular Mechanics, 1927.  (Keep in mind that nobody was buying this magazine for the articles.  The first 95 pages of every issue are classified ads and notices for home instruction in employment skills.) 

Here's a precursor to actor Jeff Goldblum selling out.  From Ulk, 1920.  (Just kidding.  The phrase "Jeff Goldblum sold out" is a Googlewhack.)

Here's a precursor to Where's Waldo.  There are actually two figures wearing red-striped shirts hidden within the image.  Also don't miss the giant cat on skiis, the lady with a "no parking" sign on her derrière, the angel on a hobby horse, the sun itself on skiis, as well as the two knights in armor and the frog skiing.  Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie is in there, too.  From Fliegende Blätter, 1938.

Here's a precursor to Tim Powers' Last Call.  "I told you when you played that king, we'd lose the trick."  From The Harvard Lampoon, 1902.

Before the nightmare of "Room 101" in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), there was "Room No. 90" in Pearson's, 1898.

Before the Mickey Mouse Club, there was the plain old mouse club.  From English Illustrated, 1898.

Here's a precursor to William Castle's buzzer-rigged seats for his marvelous film The Tingler (1959).  From The Miscellaneous Reports, Vol. IX, 1894.

We know what you're thinking, but this title isn't referring to how Twitter is mostly populated by bots.  It's actually about Ouija communications, automatic writing, and the like.  By Hester Travers Smith, 1919.

Here's a precursor to the Addams family's Uncle Fester.  The sorcerer's apprentice and the golem, from Die Muskete, 1922.

Here's a precursor to the "Nightmare Before Christmas" holiday overlay at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion.  From Judy, Or The London Serio-Comic Journal, 1875.

Here's a precursor to our weight-obsessed society.  From New Data on the Weight of a Crowd of People by Lewis J. Johnson, 1905.

Willam Burroughs was only 7 years old when his grown-up face appeared in 1921's Die Muskete.

Long before radio stations offered the best of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, novels were doing it.  From The Veiled Hand by Frederick Wicks, 1893.

You may recall that our very own Minimalist Coloring Book (2007) contains 89 images of white things, printed on white paper, inviting one to either fill in these images with a white crayon or let go of the crayon and practice the Taoist concept of wu-wei (actionless action).  Nine years later, hilarious cartoonist Oslo Davis offers an empty ice cube tray to color, part of This Annoying Life, A Mindless Coloring Book for the Highly Stressed (2016).

She's in for a shock.  Plus, this is a precursor to the Gary Numan song "Are Friends Electric?"  From Jugend, 1911.

Here's a precursor to the virtual reality headset, from The Wheel and Cycling Trade Review, 1897.

Here's a precursor to the band Sparks (pictured below), from Popular Mechanics, 1933.

A precursor to the medical romance genre was the metrical romance genre.