Probably the most famous early example of early computer animation for cartography is Waldo Tobler's 1970 film. His paper A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region gives full details of his demographic model whose primary objectives are instructional.
Population Growth Detroit Region (non-linear vertical scale)
The Michigan Department of Geology and Mineralogy produced a motion picture display of the seismicity of the Earth during the period 1961-1967 ( Motion Picture of the Seismicity of the Earth, 1961-1967).
Harold Modellering's 1973 paper The Computer Animated Film: A Dynamic Cartography discusses the use of computer animation in displaying traffic crash data.