Here's a precursor to a head with a coin slot in Kamen Rider OOO (2010), from The New Hyperion, 1875.

Here's a precursor to King Moonracer, ruler of the Island of Misfit Toys in the Rankin/Bass television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  From Thoughts on the Prophecies of Daniel by Uriah Smith, 1899.

Here are collected the best lions I've encountered in my research to date.

Here's a precursor to the 1927 film It, with Clara Bow as the "it girl."  Our illustration is from Flemington, Where Town and Country Meet, 1910.  See our previous precursor to the "it girl" here.

Here's a precursor to The Incredible Shrinking Woman's exposure to chemicals, from Cured; the 70 Adventures of a Dyspeptic by Brian Dunne, 1914.

Here's a precursor from Ninifaye's "If life gives you lemons, pack them up in your suitcase and make a nice cake when home."  From the University of Maryland's Terra Mariae yearbook, 1908.  (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)

Here's a precursor to web searches, from Elizabethtown College's Etonian yearbook, 1922.  (For some unbelievably weird yearbook imagery, see our How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.)

This spirit communication via automatic writing, from I Heard a Voice, 1918, is a precursor to Ringfinger's gothic "Undercroft" (our favorite song that's sung from the Other Side).  The text reads, "I can't remember my time on Earth.  I don't know.  I simply can't recollect what happened on Earth."  In the song, a freshly buried speaker with a mind going dim can't remember who or where he is, nor why he is buried with a shouded stranger.  Speaking of spirit communications, see Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

"Blue Monday," the so-called most depressing day of the year, dates back to 2005, if we are to believe Wikipedia.  But we can do a century better, with this Blue Monday from St. Nicholas magazine, 1904.

Visitors to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion might recognize the diminutive figure on the cabinet as a precursor to "Little Leota."  From Phantastes by George MacDonald, 1894.