I watched "The Mechanical Universe" videos on newtonian mechanics. They used lots of animations. I found the animations to be too fast and too distracting to be of any use.

The series was created by Dr Goodstein, who was my freshman physics prof. I understood the same material via him scribbling on the blackboard.

I've seen other animations of mathematics, with the same result - confusion.

I suspect the problem is that an animation does not build a mental model in your head. Carefully examining the diagrams and the equations does.