Here's a precursor to today's worthless self-help books.  The first three ways to get what you want are blank, and the fourth is to "look around you."  The only self-help book we can vouch for is How to Be Your Own Cat.  From Millikin's 1948 yearbook.

A pharmicist is making people small, decades before Steve Martin's comedy routine about getting "small" on placebo.  From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's 1912 yearbook.

A knight battles a caveman in this precursor to time-travel tales with unlikely encounters.  From Story-Telling Ballads by Frances Jenkins Olcott, 1920.

What does the musical The Sound of Music have to do with The Tibetan Book of the Dead?  The latter says that when the eight objects of consciousness are naturally liberated, the sound of music will manifest.  In the musical, Baron Von Trapp and his seven children constitute the eight objects of protagonist Maria's consciousness, and the hills were indeed alive with the sound of music as Maria found liberation from both her convent and the German occupation of Austria.

A precursor to the famous New Yorker cover of the compressed map showing New York's view of the world.  It's Noah's Log-Book, from The Century Illustrated, 1889. 

Sixty-five years before the Village People sang "Y.M.C.A.," the chorus was "Rum-tum-tiddle," as we see in this headline from The Duluth Herald, 1913.  "Y.M.C.A. roomers awakened in early hours by ragtime air played by musical janitor."  We aligned the words to the melody, for your convenience.

Here's a precursor to I Dream of Jeannie.  From Benjamin D-------, His Little Dinner, illustrated by "Whew," 1876.

Here's a precursor to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  From Lighted Pathway, 1955.

Here's a precursor to My Little Pony (90 years earlier), and his name is Linus.  From St. Nicholas, 1891.

Ten years before Candid Camera, there was this candid cam.  From Texas Wesleyan's 1938 yearbook.

This is more interesting that Tron's light cycles, in that they're based upon mundane motorcycles.  From Amazing Stories, 1931.

Ten years before Candid Camera, there was this Candid Cam.  From Texas Wesleyan's 1938 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to all the people you know with a knack for staying out of touch.  From Mystery of the Silent Friends by Robin Gottlieb.

A musically gifted lobster from Radio Guide, 1937.  (The "Rock Lobster" that the B52's sang about?)

Eleven years before Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall."  From Assumption College's 1968 yearbook.

With the checker-pattern and lapels, we'd like to call this a precursor to an album by the band The Specials.  From Tulane University's 1908 yearbook.the specials

Here's a precursor to Three Men and a Baby, from nearly 70 years earlier in Chatterbox, 1920.

Here's a precursor to the brick wall that substitutes for "Shell Beach" in the superior film Dark City.  From College of the Albemarle's 1980 yearbook.