Long before CGI, there was Ray Harryhausen: hit play or go to Link [YouTube] to see a compilation of every creature he had made using stop-motion animation. | A full list of his creatures - via Fazed.
I was a little surprised at how non-cheesy a lot of these clips look. Harryhausen's effects are obviously dated in a lot of ways, and often very obviously staged, but most of these still look really, genuinely cool.
Woo, Jason & the Argonauts! Man, I use to love those movies!