The Bear That Wasn't (film)

A bear settles down for his hibernation and while he sleeps, the progress of man continues. He wakes up to find himself in the middle of an industrial complex, where he gets mistaken by the foreman for a worker and thus is ordered to get to work. When the bear responds that he is a bear and not a human, the foreman takes the bear to each of his successive bosses (general manager and a trio of vice-presidents, all of whom tell him their own version of him merely being a "silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat"), reaching all the way up to the elderly president of the factory, who concludes he cannot be a bear because "bears are only in a zoo or a circus; they're never inside a factory." Eventually, he concludes that he is indeed a "silly man" and promptly buckles down to work hard at the factory – much to the satisfaction of the foreman and the other bosses, all of whom shake hands happily as the bear works.

Months later, the factory closes for the winter and the bear finds himself turned out of doors in the cold snow, wishing that he were a bear. Finally, he realizes that he is indeed a bear after all and – whilst discarding the trappings of his human existence – seeks out a cave to hibernate, which he enters feeling comfortable and bear-like once more.

The film was directed by Frank Tashlin's former Warner Bros. Cartoons colleague Chuck Jones. It was the final animated short subject made by MGM and its subsidiary MGM Animation/Visual Arts, and also the second-to-last animated project for MGM (The Phantom Tollbooth would be the last).

While mostly the same as the book, the short features slight differences from the book, such as the elderly president of the factory being depicted as a dwarf whose face is never seen, as well as a bear cub also repeating exactly the same claim of the bear being a "silly man" when the bear is put in the zoo.

Despite being credited as a producer, Tashlin had no involvement in the short though Jones credited him only in the hopes of Tashlin receiving an Oscar for Best Short should the short win the Oscar, which it didn't (in those days, Oscars for Best Short were given to the producers, not the director). Overall, Tashlin was dissatisfied with this adaptation of his book, feeling that it didn't present its original message very well.[1]

The Bear That Wasn't is available on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3, Disc 3 on the "From the Vaults" section and on the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1 Blu-ray box-set on Disc 3 as a bonus feature. It is also available on the Boomerang subscription streaming service under Volume 6 of MGM Cartoons titled Bear That Wasn't.

• The Bear That Wasn't at IMDb 
• The Bear That Wasn't at the TCM Movie Database
• The Bear That Wasn't at The Big Cartoon DataBase