The Stouffer brothers - Marty (Scott Bairstow), Mark (Devon Sawa), and Marshall (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) - are three animal-obsessed teenagers living in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Mark and Marty, amateur filmmakers, see an expensive camera for sale, and their parents, Marty Sr. (Jamey Sheridan) and Agnes (Frances Fisher), reluctantly loan them the money to buy it. The three brothers set out on a road trip to film rare animals, hoping to sell the footage to a TV station. When the brothers hear rumors of a cave in Wyoming full of hundreds of sleeping bears, they decide to find the cave, even though everyone says it's a legend.
Wild America contains examples of:
- Alliterative Family: Marty, Mark, and Marshall.
- Animal Stampede: The brothers trespass on government property in order to get shots of a wolf. F-14 planes drop bombs, scaring the wolf away and causing a horse stampede. The brothers flee to their car. When it won't start, Mark films the horses running around the car.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Marshall: "Dad? Did you ever fly a plane?"
- Artistic License – Physics: When Marty and Mark dunk Marshall in the pool and drop large firecrackers into the water, Marshall stays under for 20+ seconds and sits through several explosions, emerging from the water no worse for wear. In reality, even those relatively small explosives would be quite painful for young Marshall's ears, and he'd probably be deaf or suffering temporary hearing loss, due to the explosions displacing the water and amplifying the pressure blast.
- Binocular Shot: Used during some shots of the brothers looking at wildlife through binoculars.
- Book Burning: Mark likes to torment Marshall by reading gruesome stories from his book of animal attacks. Marshall finally persuades Mark to give him the book so he can burn it in the campfire.
- Cave Mouth: The cave with the sleeping bears has an opening shaped like a mouth, with icicles like teeth.
- Couldn't Find a Pen: At one point, the brothers return to their car to find one of the windows smashed, everything except the camera and film stolen, and the word "THANKS" written in the frost on the windshield.
- Distressed Dude: Leon, Marty Sr.'s partner, is none too thrilled when ends up joining Marshall hijacking the finished plane, crying and screaming constantly.Marty: [Looking through binoculars as the family chases them in the van] I see him! He's fine! He's laughing, and Leon is too! [Hands Mark the binoculars]
Mark: ...No he's not! Leon's screaming! - Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Marty Sr. wants his sons to work for his carburetor company and disapproves of any other ambitions. He only agrees to lend them the money for the camera when Agnes offers to give them the Hawaii vacation money she's been saving for several years instead. When they get home, he tells them, "You'll work the debt off, now that you got that out of your system." Marshall eventually manages to persuade him to let Marty and Mark follow their dream.
- Inevitable Waterfall: A charging moose carries Marshall into a river, where he's swept towards a rather small waterfall. He's rescued by a survivalist (Danny Glover) who holds out a stick for him to grab.
- Jerkass: DC, one of the Stouffer brothers' "friends". He's an abrasive jerk who snarks at the brothers all the time, and talks shit throughout their film presentation.
- Kids Driving Cars: Marty and Mark let Marshall drive them back home, even though he isn't old enough. A few miles outside Fort Smith, he starts pretending he's flying a plane, so he swerves all over the road and then crashes. Their Marty Sr. has to tow the car the remaining three miles.
- Little Stowaway: Marshall is not given permission to go on the trip with his older brothers, so he hides under the gear in the trunk. The brothers tell Agnes over the phone that they'll return him after two weeks, although they end up keeping him for an entire month.
- Lying Finger Cross: Marshall tells Agnes over the phone, "Of course we're being careful. Safety first, that's our motto," while crossing his fingers behind his back.
- Music Soothes the Savage Beast: When the brothers are surrounded by hungry bears, they're able to put them back to sleep by singing together.
- My Hero, Zero: Marshall is nicknamed Zero by his older brothers. His father even names the plane he's working on "0."
- Naked People Are Funny: While taking a break on the road trip, Marty and Mark chat up some attractive California hippy girls, and they go to a "nude beach", whereupon the girls run off and strip, while Marty and Mark chase after to do the same. Marshall, who stays with the truck, realizes he has free access to the camera, and gets some footage of their little escapade, which makes it into the final film, much to the older brothers' embarrassment.
- Nature Lover: It's easy to see where the brothers got their interest in wildlife - Agnes fosters animals, both wild and tame, so the house is always full of them.
- Offhand Backhand: During the big applause at the film presentation, one guy behind Leon starts booing loudly. Leon casually backhands the guy quiet without looking.
- Poster-Gallery Bedroom: The brothers' room is covered in posters of animals, mixed in with a few cars and celebrities.
- Slow Clap: After the brothers play their movie at the school gym, Marty Sr. starts to clap, and after a long pause, the rest of the audience starts to applaud too.
- Title Drop: "Wild America" is the name the brothers give to the film they make out of their wildlife footage.
- Title In: The opening shot has "Fort Smith, Arkansas 1967."
- "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: While he's a Fantasy-Forbidding Father with Mark and Marty, he gladly supports Marshall's love of flying, even spending years fixing up an old training plane for him to fly one day. Even after he's outed by Marty as having faked all the pilot stories he told Marshall, he feels more hurt that Marshall hates him after learning the truth, than the thought that all the time and money he's spent on the plane project has seemingly been for nothing now.
