Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

First use of Martians in popular fiction
Parameters: Story must contain at least one character from Mars; any medium
Suggested answer: War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells), originally serialized in 1897 in Pearson's Magazine and Cosmopolitan
 

H.G. Wells? That Johnny-come-lately! Try Bernard De Fontenelle and his Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (1686)


 

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

First superhero
Parameters: Must have costumes, powers, and a secret identity, plus do things that people would see as heroicl any medium
Suggested answer: Human Bat from The Funny Wonder (1899) - Loki mentioned in the general Things People Keep Getting Wrong Thread.

First comic book superhero
Parameters: Must have costumes, powers, and a secret identity, plus do things that people would see as heroic; must have debuted in a comic book
Suggested answer: Doctor Occult: New Fun Comics #6 (Oct. 1935) in general; More Fun Comics #14 (Oct. 1936) in superhero costume
 

I should also point out that The Funny Wonder was a comic (see this example of the cover from 1897)

albeit the Human Bat appeared in an illustrated text story rather than one of the comic strips. So he remains the first (currently found so far) superhero to debut in a comic, but not the first to debut in a comic strip.

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

First use of drugs in a children's book
Parameters: Characters are implicitly or explicitly affected by drugs
Suggested answer: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). The poppy field puts everyone to sleep, the obvious implication being that the poppies are acting as an opioid.

Possibly debatable, but Alice in Wonderland (1865). The caterpillar smokes using a hookah, which might only contain tobacco, but which was often associated with smoking hashish. And Alice does partake of mushrooms which have...interesting side effects.

I've added in Loki's suggestions and added a few more topics.

I've added in Loki's latest answer but modified the original pop culture question as a separate First because quoting an earlier work without mentioning it directly strikes me as a slightly different phenomenon. Buffy for example frequently quoted older works but rarely if ever mentioned them directly, so that sort of thing is more what I was getting at.

Loki wrote:

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

First meta horror movie - would be victims try to use tropes
Parameters: At least one character must be aware they're in a scenario where horror movie rules apply and attempt to use their knowledge to survive
Suggested answer: There's Nothing Out There (1991); while the thread isn't humanoid, a character is actively using his knowledge of movie tropes to survive the danger, and shares his knowledge with his friends. Honourable mentions: New Nightmare (1994): threat is humanoid in form, though hero not taking advantage of horror movie tropes; Scream (1996): threat is humanoid in form, heroes taking advantage of horror movie tropes.

First meta horror movie - it's futile
Parameters: At least one character must be aware they're in a scenario where horror movie rules apply but not necessarily able to stop what's going to happen
Suggested answer: Unmasked Part 25 (1988). It's the killer (Jackson) who understands the tropes but he comes to realize he's ultimately unable to change things.

Not sure which of the categories it should go in, but Fright Night (August 1985) fits as meta. Charlie Brewster recognizes that the new neighbor is a vampire because of his love of vampire movies and he (and later his ally Peter Vincent) use what said movies have taught them about vampire weaknesses in an attempt to fight them. Fright Night 2 (1988) also uses this - one character even goes further back than movies and reads Dracula to learn of vampire weaknesses mentioned there but which have been left out of the movie versions.

Actually, we might have even earlier. Salem's Lot, the 1979 miniseries, where young Mark Petrie uses what vampire movies have taught him to repel the vampiric Danny Glick from his window. Granted here it's solely the use of a cross that is explicitly something he learned from movies, rather than a wider use of knowledge of tropes, but still.

I've added the latest suggestions, and split the meta horror movie category into vampire and "dead teenager" as those have different tropes.

First television mini-series, US:
Davy Crockett (1954-55). Although based on a historical person, I don't think it was adapted from any specific source.

For a book that lists many cinematic firsts I highly recommend Patrick Robertson's Guinness Book of Movie Facts & Feats (which has also been published under several slightly different titles).
For more general historical firsts there are several books by Charles Panati.

Last edited by zuckyd1 (6/10/2022 12:56 pm)

First comic. This obviously requires qualifiers, and may end up needing to be split into subcategories. I think we have to require it tells its narrative in a mostly illustrated manner (so as to eliminate books that include a few illustrations amidst otherwise text tales), but also has to definitely be telling some sort of story in some capacity. 
That said:
First illustration which may be trying to convey a story of some variety: Arguably some cave paintings may be recordings of hunts and the like. The oldest known is over 64,000 years old, found in Maltravieso cave, Cáceres, Spain. 
The oldest one which looks like it might be telling a tale of a pig hunt is 43,900 years old and was found in caves in the Maros-Pangkep karst of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.
The Bayeux Tapestry, constructed somewhere between 1066 (as it depicts events from that year) and 1476 (the oldest known written mention of it), arguably has a stake in the game, as it tells an illustrated history of the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror, and includes some text alongside the figures. It's definitely telling a tale in mostly pictures with some text.
The Glasgow Looking Glass, 1825-1826, is currently the oldest known mass produced publication to tell stories in illustrated form, even including word balloons to show character dialogue, and so is arguably the first comic in (close-to) modern form. 
 

Loki wrote:

Some possibly very specific firsts. First story (any medium) to make sunlight fatal to vampires.This is generally ascribed to 1922's Nosferatu. Prior to this sunlight had been stated as weakening a vampire's powers (cf the original Dracula novel), but not killing them.  And while the above is fairly well known (and hopefully accurate), one I only heard about yesterday:First account to claim that werewolves are vulnerable to silver, and first account to link their transformations to the moon, AND first account to say being bitten by a werewolf is how you become a werewolf? While I'd assumed that all of these came from perhaps different but centuries old legends of the beasts, allegedly all three actually originate with Universal's The Wolfman in 1941.

Found this on TVTropes:
"There are references to the use of silver against werewolves as far back as in the 18th century or more. Back then silver was considered effective against all sorts of evil entities, and wasn't absolutely necessary in disposing them. In fact there are stories of using silver against them that go back to the 16th century, and possibly earlier, it merely wasn't that common until recently when this film [The Wolfman] made it popular."

And here's a quote from 1840:
"Two hundred years ago for a time there was a frightfully large number of werewolves in the city of Greifswald. They were especially prevelant in Rokover Street. From there they attacked anyone who appeared outside of their houses after eight o'clock in the evening. At that time there were a lot of venturesome students in Greifswald. They banded together and one night set forth against the monsters. At first they were powerless against them, until finally the students brought together all of the silver buttons that they had inherited, and with these they killed the werewolves." Source: J. D. H. Temme, Die Volkssagen von Pommern und Rügen (Berlin: In der Nicolaischen Buchhandlung, 1840), no. 259, p. 308.

Wikipedia states that links to the moon can occasionally be found in European werewolf myths:
"In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man or woman could turn into a werewolf if he or she, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on his or her face."
And from Hungary: "The transformation usually occurred during the winter solstice, Easter and a full moon."
However, "along with the vulnerability to the silver bullet, the full moon being the cause of the transformation only became part of the depiction of werewolves on a widespread basis in the twentieth century."

The Nosferatu attribution appears to be completely accurate.

Last edited by zuckyd1 (9/11/2022 3:01 pm)

Another first that is commonly attributed to the wrong contender: First interracial kiss on television.

Most people and sites seem to think this was Kirk and Uhura kissing in 1968's Plato's Stepchildren, but that's far from correct. We probably need to parse this down anyway, because some might debate what counts as interracial and whether non-romantic kisses or ones where only one person is doing the actual kissing counts. You'll see what I mean below as I delve into the examples. I'll leave out kisses in cinematic movies that might have later aired on TV for now.  

First interracial kiss on TV if a light-skinned Hispanic man is considered not to be white: I Love Lucy. Desi Arnaz (Cuban-American) and Lucille Ball, in multiple episodes as early as 1951.

First interracial kiss on TV: Ed Sullivan Show, 16th November 1958. William Shatner (yes, he's still a contender for first, just with someone other than Nichelle Nichols) and France Nuyen (Asian descent French)
...only beating by a few months:
First interracial kiss on TV between a white person and black person (thus negating the Kirk-Uhura kiss' claim): ITV Armchair Theatre episode "Hot Summer Night"  1st February 1959. Jamaican Lloyd Reckord and English Andree Melly. 
It's worth mentioning that Reckord repeated the feat in 1962 in another televised play, You in Your Small Corner. 


First interracial kiss between a black person and a white person in an ongoing TV show (rather than a one-off televised play): Emergency Ward 10, a British soap on ITV, July 1964. Jamaican-born Joan Hooley and English John White. This also means Kirk-Uhura can't claim the title for the first white man-black woman either.

First interracial kiss on Star Trek: Nope, not Kirk-Uhura. With Shatner having claimed an earlier shot at the title, this time Nichols gets her prior smooching on. 1966, "What are Little Girls Made Of?" Uhura kisses Nurse Chapel, meaning they claim first interracial kiss between woman. However, this is a non-romantic kiss:


First interracial kiss, romantic intent, on Star Trek between a man and a woman, one black, one not? Gotta be Kirk-Uhura, right? Nope. Try Sulu-Uhura in Mirror, Mirror. But to be fair, that was only one-way, not reciprocated by Uhura. 
First interracial kiss, romantic intent, on Star Trek, both parties reciprocate? Gotta be Kirk-Uhura, right? Nope. Still Mirror, Mirror, when Kirk snogs Eurasian actress Barbara Luna (Filipino ancestry).


The still-historically and socially relevant title Kirk-Uhura does still claim (barring further revelations) is 
First interracial romantic kiss on American TV between a black person and a white person. 

zuckyd1 wrote:

Loki wrote:

A topical one.

First female action lead in a movie: Surprisingly, this is not Jennifer Lawrence in Hunger Games (2012). 
If we count movie serials, that honour likely goes to Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline (1913), who did most of her own stunts to boot (in an era where stuntwork was a lot more dangerous because they were still working out how to safely do things). Honourable mention to Helen Holmes, who followed a year later in The Hazards of Helen; as a stuntwoman as well as actress, Holmes apparently did an even larger percentage of her own stunts, including leaping on to moving trains. 

My vote goes to Annie Oakley (1894)



 

I concur. I guess we need to split it:
first female action lead in a movie (non-fiction) - Annie Oakley (1894)
first female action lead in a cinematic release (movie or serial, fiction) - Pearl White (1913) - Pearls of Pauline
first female action lead in a movie (full length fictional) - ?? (not Jennifer Lawrence) 
first female action lead in a TV series - ??

By lead, they should be the star, not a co-star to an arguably more important male co-star - so no to any Bond girls for example, even the ones who were full fledged spies meant to be as good as Bond. Someone like Emma Peel would count, as I feel that while Steed was the star throughout the entire Avengers series, Emma (and the other female stars arguably) was definitely considered a full partner in the show.

We might want to consider a separate category for "first kick-@$$ female" in each category if we find ones who predate the leads but weren't themselves leads. And obviously we might split up a given category by country to some extent for cases where a non-US film or series had a female action lead ahead of US examples.

 

Andy E. Nystrom wrote:

Loki wrote:

first female action lead in a movie (full length fictional) - ?? (not Jennifer Lawrence) 
 

This is almost for sure not the answer but just to provide a "no later than" point, let's start with: Pam Grier as the titular character in Foxy Brown (1974) so we can rule out anyone after that.

That's a decent starting point. Like you, I suspect we'll find earlier, but Grier remains a prominent example of such characters.

I've seen some suggest Jane Fonda in both Barbarella (1968) and Cat Ballou (1965). I'm not sure. She's definitely the lead, and though both films contain action elements (I wouldn't discount a movie just because it was mainly comedy so long as there's a good amount of action), I don't recall how much action Fonda herself was responsible for in each. Both of her characters were feisty for sure, but I don't recall either doing a lot of fighting. Cat Ballou held at least one person at gunpoint, but that's not the same as taking part in a shoot-out. Admittedly though, it's been a fair while since I last watched either movie.

Ah, but Cheng Pei-Pei as swordwoman Golden Swallow in Hong Kong flick Come Drink With Me in 1966 certainly does count! So we've got a non-US contender for earliest, with Pam Grier perhaps retaining the title for the first US one (as ever ignoring the multiple examples from movie serials).