History Film / ErnestGoesToCamp

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Mr. Tipton, the man in charge of the camp. While none of the initial councilors trust the second chance kids and expect the worst, Tipton does give them the benefit of the doubt. While he's disappointed in Ernest following falling out of the bus on the way back and asks how he can ever expect to be a camp councilor, when the boys need a new councilor following Stennis' accident, rather than send them back (since it's obvious, to the other councilors, that they caused it on purpose), rather than send them back, he promotes Ernest to manager. It's not until the fight after their teepee catches fire that he considers sending them back to the institute, telling Ernest it's not his fault (since he thought Ernest could be a good councilor) and only agrees to give them one last chance after Ernest pleads for them to stay.

* SmurfettePrinciple: Nurse St. Cloud is the only female at Camp Kikakee.

* RecycledInSpace: Pristine land, owned by Natives, under threat from a mining company looking for a rare mineral? You're either describing this film or ''{{Film/Avatar}}''.

* JerkToNiceGuyPlot: The boys at camp play cruel pranks on Ernest, and then force him to enter a fist fight with a construction worker 10 times stronger than he is to fight for their camp. Only then when their camp is in serious danger of being closed down forever for land development do they put aside their hostility for Ernest and start treating him like a true friend.

* TurtlePower: [[NinjaPirateRobotZombie Turtle paratroopers]]!

* AssholeVictim: Ross Stennis, the first camp counselor assigned to the boys, is tough on them (most likely because they came from a detention center and doesn't trust them). During swim time, he finds out that Moose can't swim and rather than teach him or give him a floating device, he picks him up and drops him into the deep end. After Ernest saves Moose from drowning, the other boys decide to push Stennis into the lake, causing him to break his leg and have to leave his job.

* AwardBaitSong: "Gee I'm Glad It's Raining"

* HeroicBSOD: Ernest has been tricked into persuading the Chief into signing away the deed to the camp. When he goes to confront Krader on his trickery, Stinson beats the crap out of him, causing the "last chance kids" to lose faith in him. He even gets a song out of it ("Gee, I'm Glad It's Raining").

* TheDragon: Brock Stinson, the foreman of Krader's demolition crew. He ''brutally'' beats up Ernest when tries to take on Krader alone, and is one of the few villains to serve as a competent threat in the final battle.

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Ernest suffers one at the hands of Krader's enforcer.
** He and the boys then deliver one to Krader's entire force.

* AssholeVictim: Stennis, the first camp councilor assigned to the boys, is tough on them (most likely because they came from a detention center and doesn't trust them). During swim time, he finds out that Moose can't swim and rather than teach him or give him a floating device, he picks him up and drops him into the deep end. After Ernest saves Moose from drowning, the other boys decide to push Stennis into the lake, causing him to break his leg and have to leave his job.

* BorrowedCatchPhrase: After Ernest convinces Mr. Tipton to let the boys have one last chance at the camp, he tells them they'd better get with the program and then says Ernest's catch phrase, "know what I mean?"

* ChekhovsSkill: In an early scene, when Ernest laments to the nurse about not being a camp councilor, he mentions that he's the only one at camp who knows the tribes sign language. When Sherman Krader sees Ernest communicating with Chief St. Cloud via this method, he tricks Ernest into convincing him to sign the contracts. After it's announced that the camp has been bought, Nurse St. Cloud instantly figures out that Ernest is responsible because they are the only two who are capable of communicating with her grandfather.

* InformedAbility: When Ernest is introduced to each of the kids, Chip Osgood is referred to as "the Albert Einstein of the institute", implying he is TheSmartGuy, but he doesn't seem to be more or less inteligent than the other boys (though the others certainly aren't stupid). Unless she meant it as sarcasm.
* IronicEcho: When Stennis learns Moose can't swim, he picks him up and throws him into the deep water, telling him he'll learn "the Stennis way". When they boys push Stennis into the water and injure him, they say that he's learning "the Stennis way".
* ItsAllMyFault: After the boys get into a fight and are almost kicked out of camp, Mr. Tipton tells Ernest it's not his fault because he thought Ernest could do a good job, but Ernest says that maybe he wasn't a good enough councilor in regards to why the kids should be given another chance.

* KidAppealCharacter: Moose, the youngest of the "last chance kids", appears to be this. While the rest of them tend to be [[TheGenericGuy generic troublemakers]], he's the only one with a real personality, being a generally nice kid (and there's no clue as to why he was in the detention center in the first place) and the first of them to like Ernest (after Ernest [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe saves him from drowning]]).

* ManlyTears

* RealityEnsues: Ernest's blunt approach of threatening the construction workers backfires horribly when the massive foreman takes him up on the invitation to a fistfight. Despite the cartoonish slapstick in the movie, this sequence has Ernest take a pretty realistic and brutal beating.

* AssholeVictim: Stennis, the first camp councilor assigned to the boys, is tough on them (most likely because they came from a detention center and doesn't trust them). During swim time, he finds out that Moose can't swim and rather than teach him, he picks him up and drops him into the deep end. After Ernest saves Moose from drowning, the other boys decide to push Stennis into the lake, causing him to have to leave his job.