The egg dance was a traditional Easter game in which dancers moved among eggs scattered on the floor without breaking any. Some versions were blindfolded, and others had players flip a bowl over an egg using only their feet. One early reference describes the 1498 wedding of Margaret of Austria and Philibert of Savoy, where a couple who finished without breaking an egg was seen as blessed for marriage. The game was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and appeared in many paintings of village life. By the nineteenth century, political cartoons used it to show leaders carefully navigating treacherous situations, including Bismarck and Disraeli.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.