Gentle Ben is a bear character created by author Walt Morey and first introduced in a 1965 children's novel, Gentle Ben. The original novel told the story of the friendship between a large male bear named Ben and a boy named Mark. The story provided the basis for the 1967 film Gentle Giant, the popular late 1960s U.S. television series Gentle Ben, a 1980s animated cartoon and two early 2000s made-for-TV movies.