Chuck Jones has been quoted as having said that everyone's first few thousand
drawings will be terrible, so you might as well get them out of the
way. I've seen the quote with varied phrasing, and I assume its
context was advice given to aspiring cartoonists. Please find the correct
quote and citation.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 15 Jun 2005 13:18 PDT

Howdy, cribcage! 

I believe the source of the Chuck Jones quote is the book "Chuck
Amuck," Jones's autobiography.

Some online references:

In Chuck Amuck, an autobiography by Chuck Jones, the famed Warner
Brothers animator, Jones recalls that his first instructor at
Chouinard Art Institute greeted the class with a grim edict: "All of
you here have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you
get rid of them, the better it will be for everyone."

http://www.biggeworld.com/archive/theirs.html

In his autobiography Chuck Amuck, Chuck Jones quoted one of his
art-school teachers as saying "All of you have one hundred thousand
bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them, the better it
will be for everyone."

http://forums.keenspot.com/viewtopic.php?start=0&t=53453

In Chuck Jones's book "Chuck Amuck" about his time making Loony Toons
Cartoons at Warner Bros. he describes one of his first drawing
instructors in school: "...Nicolaides at the Art Students League,
greeted his beginning classes with the following grim edict: 'All of
you have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get
rid of them, the better it will be for everyone.'"

http://community.sonikmatter.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t12152.html

Please let me know whether this would be a fully satisfactory answer.

---

Clarification of Question by cribcage-ga on 15 Jun 2005 13:24 PDT

As usual, you're absolutely right. Based on your information, I just
used Amazon's "Search Inside This Book" feature to confirm the quote
appears on page 51 of "Chuck Amuck." Thank you! Please post and
collect.

I'm delighted to have been able to help you with this! Chuck Jones is
one of my favorite cartoonists.

For the record, here's the quote:

"...it was no discouraging surprise to me that my first instructor at
Chouinard Art Institute, like Nicolaides at the Art Students League,
greeted his beginning classes with the following grim edict: 'All of
you here have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you
get rid of them, the better it will be for everyone.'

This was not a discouraging statement to me, because I was already
well into my third hundred thousand."

(From page 51 of "Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist.")

I confess that I didn't know that the book existed (although I have
now ordered it). After noodling around for a few minutes with keywords
that brought no joy, I located the information with this search
string:

Google Web Search: "chuck jones" "thousand bad drawings"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22chuck+jones%22+%22thousand+bad+drawings%22 

Very best regards,
pinkfreud

PinkFreud's consistently stellar level of service and satisfaction is
impressive for any professional, online or off. PinkFreud rocks.

Thank you very much for the five stars, the nice tip, and -- most of
all -- the kind words!

~pinkfreud