Older Than Television

The Oldest Ones in the Book
Older Than the NES | Before 1985
Older Than Cable TV | 1939 — 1980
Older Than Television | 1890 — 1939
Older Than Radio | 1698 — 1890
Older Than Steam | 1439 — 1698
Older Than Print | 476 — 1439
Older Than Feudalism | ~800 BC — 476 AD
Older Than Dirt | Before ~800 BC

Tropes first documented between the invention of radio (1890) and the emergence of television as a mass medium of entertainment (1939).

Radio and Cinema provided two entirely new media, for the first time in millennia, and originated many tropes. This is also the time of the first Super Heroes, and the majority of Sherlock Holmes stories^note (though the first novel is Older Than Radio).

TV, as we generally know it, was invented in 1928, but regular broadcasts didn't start until 1936 in the U.K. and Nazi Germany and 1939 in the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

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Tropes:

• Abandoned Mascot — Mickey Mouse replaced Oswald the Lucky Rabbit with Steamboat Willie, 1928
• The Abridged History: 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember, Including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings, and 2 Genuine Dates, 1930
• Accidental Aiming Skills — The Gold Rush, 1925.
• Acme Products — Never Weaken, 1921.
• Adorably Precocious Child — Edogawa Rampo's [1894-1965] detective novels.
• Adventures in Comaland — The Poor Little Rich Girl, 1917
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot — R.U.R., 1920. Also coined the word "robot."
• Alertness Blink — Pick an early-20th Century cartoon. Steamboat Willie (1928) is a good starting point.
• Alien Invasion — The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, 1898, and Auf zwei Planeten ("On Two Planets") by Kurd Laßwitz, 1897
• Aliens Are Bastards — The War of the Worlds 1898
• All Part of the Show — Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo, 1892
• Ancient Astronauts — Edison's Conquest of Mars, 1898
• Animal Talk — The Jungle Book, 1894
• Animated Adaptation — Little Nemo, 1911
• Animated Musical — Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937
• Anthology Film — Intolerance, 1916
• Antiquated Linguistics — H. P. Lovecraft, 1890-1937
• Artificial Gravity — Auf zwei Planeten by Kurd Lasswitz, 1897, and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells, 1901
• Artsy Beret — while the Ur-Example may be Rembrandt's 17th century self portrait, this was first popularized by artists in 1920's Paris, such as Pablo Picasso.
• Aside Glance — silent comedy films. Used in Les Vampires, 1915.
• Aspect Ratio Switch — Napoléon (1927), used 4:3 for most of the film, but the climax switches on two projectors on either side of the main one, showing off the Polyvision system with a ridiculously wide 4:1 ratio. This remains the widest Aspect Ratio in cinematic history. This three projector system would be imitated 25 years later with the Cinerama system.
• Assembly Line Fast-Forward — Modern Times, 1936
• Asteroid Miners — Edison's Conquest of Mars, Garrett P. Serviss, 1898
• Author Vocabulary Calendar — Bram Stoker uses the word "voluptuous" a lot in Dracula, 1897.
• Award Show — The 2nd Academy Awards, 1930
• Axe Before Entering — Broken Blossoms, 1919
• Banana Republic — Named and used in O. Henry's 1904 novel Cabbages And Kings, and the concept also shows up in Joseph Conrad's Nostromo from the same year.
• Bar Brawl — The Strong Man, 1926
• Behind a Stick — Pauvre Pierrot, 1892
• Benevolent Alien Invasion — Auf zwei Planeten ("On Two Planets") by Kurd Laßwitz, 1897
• Big Game — The Freshman, 1925
• Big Man on Campus — The Freshman, 1925
• The Big Rotten Apple — The Musketeers of Pig Alley and The Land Beyond the Sunset, 1912
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word — 1930s Hollywood
• Blade Brake — The Black Pirate, 1926
• Blaming "The Man" — One of Ours, 1922
• The Book Cipher — Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear, 1915
• Breakup Breakout — Bing Crosby after The Rhythm Boys split up in 1931.
• Bridge Logic — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900
• Broadcast Live — The first entertainment-oriented radio transmission was Reginald Fessenden's Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast from Massachusetts, which was also the Ur-Example of a Christmas Special ("O Holy Night" has the distinction of being the first Christmas carol played on the air). Charles Herrold's San Jose Calling, beginning in 1909, was the first regularly-scheduled entertainment program.
• Broke Episode — A lot of films and literature made during the Great Depression featured impoverished protagonists.
• Bronson Canyon and Caves — First used as a shooting location in Lightning Bryce (1919)
• Busman's Holiday — Sherlock Holmes, 1893
• Cactus Cushion — Fanchon the Cricket, 1915
• Car Song — "In My Merry Oldsmobile", 1905
• Catching Some Z's — The Katzenjammer Kids used this Stock Visual Metaphor before Charles Schulz was even born in 1922.
• Caused the Big Bang — The Accursed Galaxy by Edmond Hamilton, 1935
• Chalk Outline — The Case of the Velvet Claws, 1933
• China Takes Over the World — The War In The Air by H. G. Wells, and Lord Of The World by Robert Hugh Benson, both published 1907-1908.
• Chronoscope — The Retrospektiv in Auf zwei Planeten ("On Two Planets, 1897) by Kurd Laßwitz, 1897
• Citizenship Marriage —The Mating Call, 1928
• Cliffhanger Copout — Undersea Kingdom, 1936
• Climbing Climax — King Kong, 1933
• Clockwork Creature — Tiktok in Ozma of Oz, 1907
• Coat, Hat, Mask — The Invisible Man, 1897
• Cold Equation — Woman in the Moon, 1929^note Unless you count Lawrence Oates's Real Life and ultimately futile example from Robert Scott's Antarctic expedition, 1912
• Company Cameo — The New York Hat, 1912
• Concept Video — Popular songwriter Charles K. Harris developed slide shows for his songs in the 1890s, with painted photos illustrating the song's lyrics.
• The Convenient Store Next Door — The Sherlock Holmes story "The Red Headed League", 1891
• Conveyor Belt o' Doom — Joseph Arthurs' melodrama Blue Jeans, 1890
• Cooking Show — Cook's Night Out, 1937
• Corrupt Corporate Executive — A Corner in Wheat, 1909
• Creepy Child — The Turn of the Screw, 1898
• Cut Phone Lines — Suspense, 1913
• Cyberpunk — Metropolis 1927, by Fritz Lang.
• Dawson Casting — Mary Pickford playing children in several films, such as The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917), in which 24-year-old Pickford played an 11-year-old girl.
• The Day the Music Lied — Popeye cartoon films, 1933-onward.
• Death in the Clouds — The Trope Namer is the Agatha Christie novel Death in the Clouds first published in 1935.
• Death Ray — The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, 1898, and Auf zwei Planeten ("On Two Planets") by Kurd Laßwitz, 1897
• Defictionalization — Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, 1890
• Designer Babies — Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World
• Desires Prison Life — "The Cop and the Anthem" by O. Henry, 1904
• Dictionary Opening — Sabotage, 1936
• Dinosaur Doggie Bone — Bringing Up Baby, 1938, and King Ottokar's Sceptre, 1938/39
• Disney Villain Death — An old Mickey Mouse comic had a giant fall to his death.
• Doomsday Device — The "Earth Brake" in Auf zwei Planeten by Kurd Laßwitz, 1897
• Dramatic Half-Hour — The Lone Ranger ran for 30 min per episode.
• Dramedy — Charlie Chaplin's The Kid. 1921.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty — Tell It to the Marines, 1926
• Drunken Montage — Hollywood, 1930s or even earlier.
• Duck Season, Rabbit Season — Sons of the Desert, 1933
• Dumbwaiter Ride — Charlie Chaplin's The Count, 1916.
• Dying Dream — Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", 1890
• Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion — The War of the Worlds 1898, using the "planet takes care of the invaders by itself" variant.
• Edgy Backwards Chair-Sitting — Joan Blondell publicity photo, early 1930s
• Elaborate Underground Base — The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LeRoux, 1909
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome — The Barretts of Wimpole Street, 1934 (predating Elmer Fudd himself by three years)
• Elves Versus Dwarves — The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, 1895, with the Eloi and Morlocks. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937, used it with actual elves and dwarves.
• Epic Movie — Cabiria, 1914
• Epic Tracking Shot — The Last Laugh, 1924
• Epunymous Title — The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895
• Every Car Is a Pinto — Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler, 1922
• Exploitation Film — Traffic in Souls, 1913
• Facecam — The Fall of the House of Usher, 1928
• Fair-Play Whodunnit — The Sherlock Holmes story "The Red Headed League", 1891
• Fake Shemp — Foolish Wives, 1922
• Fanservice Extra — Intolerance, 1916
• Fantastic Fighting Style — Baritsu, from the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Empty House", 1903.
• Fanvid — Rose Hobart, 1936
• Fakeout Escape — "The Escape of Arsene Lupin", 1906
• The Film of the Book — Cinderella by George Méliès, 1899 (one of the earliest known, anyway)
• Fingertip Drug Analysis — The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916)
• The Flapper — Emerged during The Roaring '20s.
• Fog of Doom — The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel, 1901, and the Martians' Black Smoke weapon in The War of the Worlds, 1898.
• Follow the Bouncing Ball — "Come Take a Trip in My Airship", 1924
• Forensic Drama — They're Always Caught (1938)
• Foot Popping — Recommended in The Hays Code (1930) and in "An Outline of Motion Picture Etiquette" in the October 1923 issue of Screenland.
• Fruit Cart — The Curtain Pole, 1909
• Full-Conversion Cyborg — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900): The Tin Woodsman started out as a munchkin whose body parts were gradually chopped off by an enchanted axe and replaced until there was nothing left of him but tin. This notably is adapted out of the Film Adaptation.
• Garden-Hose Squirt Surprise — In The Sprinkler Sprinkled by the Lumière brothers, 1895
• Gay Best Friend: Millie, 1931
• Gay Aesop — In Different from the Others, 1919
• Gentlemen Rankers — In "Gentlemen-rankers" by Rudyard Kipling (1892).
• Giggling Villain — Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", 1893
• Girls Behind Bars — Diary of a Lost Girl, 1929
• The Glasses Gotta Go — Footlight Parade, 1933
• Going Cold Turkey — Kongo and Three on a Match, 1932
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion — They Knew What They Wanted, 1924
• Green-Skinned Space Babe — Deja Thoris from Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, 1912, or the slightly less exotic-looking La from Kurd Laßwitz' Auf zwei Planeten ("On Two Planets"), 1897
• "Groundhog Day" Loop — The Shadow (radio show), 1939
• Guns Akimbo — The Bargain, 1914
• Halloween Episode — The War of the Worlds, 1938
• Hash House Lingo — Fatty Arbuckle short film The Waiters' Ball, 1916
• Heroic Fire Rescue — Life of an American Fireman, 1902
• Hihi'irokane — The Takenouchi Documents, 1935
• Hitler Cam — Triumph of the Will, 1934, and other Nazi propaganda of the era
• Hollywood Glass Cutter — The Sherlock Holmes short story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton", 1904
• Hollywood Satanism — The Black Cat, 1934
• Hook Hand — Peter Pan, 1904
• Hospital Gurney Scene — Men in White, 1933
• Ignore the Disability — 1930s, if not earlier.
• I Hit You, You Hit The Ground — "There'll be only two blows struck: I'll hit him, and he'll hit the earth.": Little Nemo, 1909.
• I'll Take Two Beers Too — A Night at the Opera and The Fixer Uppers, 1935
• Inscrutable Aliens — The Martians in The War of the Worlds. Humanity can only speculate on what they want with Earth.
• Intrepid Reporter — The Power of the Press, 1928
• Ironic Nursery Tune — Mahler's Symphony No. 1, 1899
• Jedi Mind Trick — The Shadow, 1938
• Just for the Heli of It — It Happened One Night, 1934
• Kaiju — The Lost World, 1925
• King of the Homeless — At the latest, James Elroy Flecker's Hassan, 1922. You could argue earlier ones, but Rafi in Hassan fits the trope exactly, whereas, say, Fagin from Oliver Twist is more of a local crime boss.
• Kirk's Rock — Secrets, 1933
• Kitschy Themed Restaurant — Our Relations, 1936
• Lecture as Exposition — The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1933
• Left-Justified Fantasy Map — The Hobbit, 1937
• Lensman Arms Race — Lensman novels, 1937
• Light Gun Game — Ray-O-Lite, 1936 (also found under Older Than the NES)
• Like You Were Dying — Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Blue Castle, 1926
• Live-Action Adaptation — Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, 1906 (of comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend)
• Lost in a Crowd — The 39 Steps, 1935
• Loves My Alter Ego — Roxane, Cyrano and Christian in Cyrano de Bergerac, 1897
• Lurid Tales of Doom — Five Star Final, 1931
• Mad Scientist Laboratory — Metropolis, 1927
• The Mafia — Sherlock Holmes story "The Six Napoleons", 1904
• Magic Feather — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900
• Make It Look Like an Accident — A primary M.O. of Prof. James Moriarty's organization in the 1893 Sherlock Holmes Short Story "The Final Problem".
• Marilyn Maneuver — Mack Sennett short The Surf Girl, 1916
• Meat-O-Vision — The Gold Rush, 1925
• Meet Cute — 1930s screwball comedies; also Christine and Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LeRoux, 1909
• Merchandise-Driven — The Little Orphan Annie radio show from The '30s.
• Mirror Routine: The Floorwalker, 1916
• The Mole — Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear, 1915
• Monumental Battle — King Kong, 1933
• Monumental Damage Resistance — Deluge, 1933
• Morning Sickness — Where Are My Children?, 1916
• Murder by Remote Control Vehicle: The Shadow radio show, 1939
• The Musical Musical — The Broadway Melody, 1929
• A Nazi by Any Other Name — The House of Rothschild, 1934
• Necro Cam: A Flashback-Montage Realization about how a character died. Present in Fog Over Frisco and The Case of the Curious Bride, 1934.
• Newscaster Cameo — H.V. Kaltenborn in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939
• Noodle Incident — The Sherlock Holmes canon, if not earlier.
• Novelization — The novelization of Traffic in Souls, 1914
• Nudity Equals Honesty — A nude woman playing a character called the "Naked Truth" in film Hypocrites, 1915
• Ocular Gushers — This Ko-Ko Song Car-Tune, entitled "Darling Nellie Gray" (1926), has a dog character crying in this manner during the lyric "And I'm weeping all the day."
• Ominous Latin Chanting — Justified [as it's set in a church and involves a villain who's a religious hypocrite] in the Act I finale of Puccini's Tosca, 1900; The modern, more random usages of the trope probably date from Alexander Nevsky, 1938.
• Omniscient Database — 1890s and Sherlock Holmes
• One-Letter Name — K of The Castle, Franz Kafka, 1926
• The Oner — A Trip Down Market Street, 1906
• Our Alebrijes Are Different — Pedro Linares Lopez had fever dreams of Alebrijes in 1936
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same — The Hobbit, 1937
• Paddleball Shot — Audioscopiks, 1935
• Pardon My Klingon — Utopia, Limited, Gilbert and Sullivan, 1893. Lalabalele talala! Callabale lalabalica falahle!
• Peter Pan Parody - The Little White Bird, 1902
• Phoneaholic Teenager — Likely became common as soon as a telephone in every home became common, which happened during this era.
• Phony Newscast — The War of the Worlds (radio version), 1938
• Planet Looters — The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, 1898
• Police Procedural — M, 1931
• Product Placement — Sweet Corporal tobacco, Princess Nicotine, 1909
• Put Me In, Coach! — The Freshman, 1925
• Putting on the Reich — Alexander Nevsky, 1938 (The Teutonic Knights with swastikas) and It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, 1939.
• Race for Your Love — Matrimony's Speed Limit, 1913
• Rain of Blood — Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, 1891
• Rake Take — Grandma's Boy, 1922
• Retirony — Central Park, 1932
• Revival by Commercialization — The 1931 hit "As Time Goes By" getting new life from Casablanca, 1942. It even led to a sheet music reissue prominently touting the film on the cover, complete with pics of Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid.
• Right-Hand Cat — The Three Musketeers, 1921
• The Right of a Superior Species — The War of the Worlds, 1898.
• Rip Tailoring — Clara Bow in It, 1927.
• Robot War — R.U.R., 1920
• Rockers Smash Guitars — The Old Mill Pond, 1936
• Roger Rabbit Effect — Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914
• Rule 34 — The Tijuana Bible.
• Safe Driving Aesop — Drunk Driving, 1939
• Scamming the Bereaved — Blonde Crazy, 1931
• Scooby Stack — Grandma's Boy, 1922
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You — The Great Train Robbery, 1903
• Sexy Figure Gesture — That Little Band of Gold, 1915
• The Shangri-La — 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton
• Shiksa Goddess — Trilby, 1894
• Skinny Dipping — Mickey, 1918
• Sky Face — Trader Horn, 1931
• Soap Opera — On radio, Painted Dreams, 1930. On television, These Are My Children, 1949 (the first daily daytime TV drama). Both shows were created by Irna Phillips (who also created Guiding Light, As the World Turns and Another World).
• Space Opera — Lensman, 1937
• Space Station — Auf zwei Planeten ("On Two Planets") by Kurd Laßwitz, 1897
• Spit Take — The Knockout, 1914
• Split Screen — Suspense, 1913
• Split-Screen Phone Call — Canned Harmony, 1912
• Starts with Their Funeral — The Power and the Glory, 1933
• Stop Trick — J. Stuart Blackton's Enchanted Drawing, 1900; and George Méliès' A Trip to the Moon, 1902.
• Strip Poker — The Dark Horse, 1932
• Summation Gathering — The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920
• Superhero — Golden Bat paper theatre (1930), The Shadow magazine (1931), Mandrake the Magician (1934), The Phantom (1936), and Superman (1938)
• Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Romanian folk tale "The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy", 1894
• Synthetic Plague - The Shadow, 1938
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death — Any hard-boiled radio drama.
• Take the Wheel — Sherlock, Jr., 1924
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That — The Greeks Had a Word for Them, 1932
• Tarzan Boy — The Jungle Book, 1894
• Tele-Frag — Amazing Stories, Discussed in "The Machine Man of Ardathia", 1927, invoked in "Anachronism", 1930
• The Television Talks Back — Stage Struck, 1936
• Terminally Dependent Society — E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops", 1909
• Terrorists Without a Cause — The Secret Agent, 1907
• That Was Objectionable — The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup, 1933.
• Time Stands Still — "The New Accelerator" by H. G. Wells, 1901
• Titled After the Song — Little Annie Rooney, 1925
• Toplessness from the Back — Foolish Wives, 1922
• The Triads and the Tongs — The Cameraman, 1928
• Trick-and-Follow Ploy — Performed by Sherlock Holmes in "A Scandal in Bohemia", 1891.
• Tripod Terror — The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, 1898
• Tropey, Come Home — "Lassie Come Home" (original short story), 1938
• Twilight of the Old West — Officially began with the declaration of the closure of the American frontier, incidentally also in 1890
• Tunnel of Love — The Crowd, 1928
• Turned Against Their Masters — The robots do it in R.U.R., 1920
• Uterine Replicator — Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World
• Variety Show — Blue Monday Jamboree, 1927 (a local San Francisco radio show that later went nationwide).
• Vice President Who? — His Royal Slyness, 1920
• Video Phone — Die Fernschule ("The Long-Distance School") by Kurd Laßwitz, 1902, Metropolis, 1927.
• Video Wills — The Greeks Had a Word for Them, 1932, using a phonograph.
• Virtual Celebrity — Charlie McCarthy, a character created by Edgar Bergen, gained mass popularity in 1937.
• The Voiceless — Harpo Marx, who debuted with his brothers in The Cocoanuts in 1929. (If you count their prior stage career, Harpo was doing The Voiceless by the mid-1910s.)
• Wartime Cartoon — "The Sinking of the Lusitania", 1918
• Watching the Reflection Undress: Foolish Wives, 1922
• Wax On, Wax Off: One Night of Love, 1934
• We Have Ways of Making You Talk: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, 1935^note Although the line in the movie is actually "We have ways to make men talk."
• We Interrupt This Program — Death on the Diamond, 1934
• Widescreen Shot — Older Than They Think; The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, 1897, shot in 1.65:1 aspect ratio; if you stretch the definition to include paintings, goes as far back as Older Than Print or even farther to accommodate any low but considerably wide painting, relief or artwork
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity — The Invisible Man, 1897. While there may have been earlier versions, this is notably the first time man-made technology grants the powers that drive the gifted insane.
• Working the Same Case — The Hardy Boys, 1927, if not earlier
• Wrong Insult Offence — The title character in Cyrano de Bergerac, 1897.
• The Wrong Way on the Escalator — The Floorwalker, 1916.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz — Aleister Crowley popularized the "Magick" spelling for "magic" in the modern western world.
• Yakuza — Walk Cheerfully, 1930

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