Here's a precursor to "photobombing," in which a stray figure on the left pulls focus from what is Through the Eye of a Needle (by L. Trelyven Creole, 1892).

Here's a precursor to the "hundredth monkey effect" (not to be confused with the infinite monkey theorem), from St. Nicholas magazine, 1904.

Here's a precursor to Harpo Marx under the bed in 1929's The Cocoanuts, from Too Clever by Half by John Lang, 1878.

Here's a precursor to the haunted bendy door in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, from Ladies' Home Journal, 1948.

The old foot-stuck-in-a-seashell gag (though it's a Googlewhack!), from St. Nicholas magazine, 1904.

Here's a precursor to Ruth Tearle's affirmation that "Every bubble has a different personality" (Blackboards Bubbles & Cappuccinos, 2005), from St. Nicholas magazine, 1910.

Limping along on credit, from The Man in the Moon, 1820.

Here's a precursor to advice columnist Dear Abby, from The Boy-God by Edward Melville Lynch, 1892.

The first definition of a fractal is credited to Karl Weierstrass in 1872, but that didn't stop the builders of York Castle's tower in the early thirteenth century.  Our proof appears in The Martial Annals of the City of York by Caesar Caine, 1893.

Here's a precursor to a Talking Heads song.  The caption reads, "Dancing around the burning house."  From The Light-Ship Hand by Henry Frith, 1893.

Here's a precursor to marriage equality, from 1892.  The title reads, Our Marriage Barrier.

Here's a precursor to the Gremlins, from Fors Clavigera by John Ruskin, 1886.

This ornate capital G reminds us of Number 2's signature spherical chair in The Prisoner series.  From Loose Rein by Wanderer and illustrated by G. Bowers, 1887.

Here's a precursor to Edward Gorey's tassel people (inset), from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 1860.

Before our smartphones and RFID-chipped credit cards broadcast our every move, folks were tracked by their tattoos.  (From 1896.)

Even before the controversy of Google Maps' satellite imagery, some very famous addresses have been leaked to the general public.  For example, here's "The residence of Mr. Heaven," from Picnic, an Illustrated Guide to Ilfracombe and North Devon, 1890.

It may not be quite as exciting as the prediction of flying cars and colonies on Mars, but here's "the bull-dog of the future," from Prose and Verse by William James Linton, 1836.

Here's a precursor to the Viewmaster, from The Story of Rapid Transit by Beckles Willson, 1903.

Here's a precursor to the Prince song "Alphabet St.," from What was the Gunpowder Plot? by John Gerard, 1897.  (Q: Did you spot the doubled letters in the illustration?)

There was a time before the Internet axiom, "What has been seen cannot be unseen."  We find proof in Seen & Unseen, or Monologues of a Homeless Snail by Yone Noguchi, 1897.