The Arctic Giant

"The Arctic Giant," a 1942 Superman cartoon by the Fleischer brothers, is significant in its portrayal of a giant dinosaur on the rampage in a major city (New York--we see the "Museum of Natural Science," a dead ringer for the Museum of Natural History, and a baseball stadium that sure looks like Yankee Stadium). As such it looks forward to both THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) and GODZILLA (1954). BEAST featured Ray Harryhausen's debut as a special effects director, as he animated a stop-motion dinosaur on the loose in Manhattan. Ishiro Honda's GODZILLA featured a giant dinosaur (created by an actor in a rubber dinosaur suit) looking very much like the one in this cartoon on the loose in Tokyo. As in the other Paramount Superman cartoons, the animation is absolutely breathtaking.