The Bear That Wasn't is a 1946 children's picture book written and illustrated by filmmaker and Looney Tunes alumnus Frank Tashlin. Synopsis 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 doesn't work there, and that he's is a bear and not a human, the foreman denounces him as merely being a "silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat", and 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 the same claim), 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." To prove that he's not a bear, the bosses take him to a zoo, where the zoo bears themselves express the same belief on account he would be in the cage with them otherwise. With his hopes seemingly dashed, the bear 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. For a while, he just sits there, unsure of what to do, due being torn between what he has been told so far. Finally, he discards the trappings of his human existence, seeks out a cave to hibernate, which he enters feeling comfortable and bear-like once more, because he has realized that even though the foreman, the bosses and even the zoo bears had told him he was a "silly man", that did not necessarily mean it was really true. The narrator concludes that he "wasn't a silly man, or a silly bear, either". Themes Though appearing as a children's book, the story is a critical satire towards aspects of society. It revolves around the concept of people believing a repeated idea