The earliest mention of this problem I can recall is in the 1948 movie Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_

The earliest mention of this problem I can recall is in the 1948 movie Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_His_Dream_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_His_Dream... Admittedly, that wasn't the extreme form. Rather, they had misread the train schedule, and available trains ran at very inconvenient times.