Could someone point me in the right direction to learn how to make great
animations that aren't choppy? Ive done some Flash animations and they look
like crap...completely amateurish.

Where are the good tutorials that show how to do Flash "right"?
Which books do you guys recommend?

for starters - try this forum:
http://www.flashfilmmaker.com
there are many more animators active over there and it's a really good resource for animation in general - not just animation with flash.

When you say "crap" - i don't know exactly what you mean aside from choppy - to make smoother animation do what jeckyl suggests and raise the frame rate - i usually animate at 24fps - web, TV, DVD, whatever the project calls for - with great results.
be smart about how you animate if you are animating content being played back with the flash player - refrain from generous use of alpha transparencies - multiple objects moving at same time - fullscreen animation - large bitmaps - etc....be smart and optimize all your work and you should be fine....




chris georgenes
mudbubble.com
Team Macromedia Volunteer for Flash
http://www.flashfilmmaker.com

Keep in mind your playback...export and test at the size you want your swf to be in your delivered medium (ie, dont scale things) also if youre doing 'dirty' animation, try knocking down the quality...and use special types of lines (dashed, ragged, stipple, etc) sparingly, as they render slowly...if your animation style needs help, keep in mind that the first thing EVERYONE does in flash is make a crappy movie where everything is gradient filled (its a right of passage)...remember that traditional animation is inked and then painted so try putting a hairline (or more...it's stylistically up to you, but explore the idea of making it look like another medium) around everything...and go for solid fills (the simpsons and the flintstones are the most well known cartoons ever and both use flat fills...gradients arent a replacement for character design!!!)

Lastly--plan things! storyboard and key some frames before you even open flash...I know, I personally hate doing it as well but my animations are consistently better when I open flash with a full plan of attack and know exactly what I'm making rather than just saying 'Look out baby!! I'm makin a toon today!!' and doodling randomly...anyway, sorry I'm ranting, hope some of this helps

A higher frame rate and move things slowly if possible usually helps. The
slower the frame rate or the faster things move the more they tend to jump.
I wouldn't suggest going above (say) 30fps though.