Ooh, while I can't help with the Wilson-esque companion thing, I can offer advice on a humorous mistake a lot of inexperienced outdoorsmen make, or almost make before being corrected by someone. You see, I go backpacking and hiking a lot, so I like to think I sort of know a little bit about what I'm talking about.
You see, it is always a good idea to carry bear spray when hiking (it's basically just mace with a bear on the label). You use it just like mace, and spray the bear when it gets too close. However, it's a better idea to just shout at it and make noise to make a bear go away and only resort to the spray when it gets frighteningly close to you, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, a lot of inexperienced hikers assume that since you spray a bear to make it go away, you can also spray it on the ground in a circle around your camp to keep bears away at night. This is a very bad idea, because bear spray has pepper in it, which is a food and thus attracts bears. Also a lot of people forget to put all of their food into a bag and hang it in a tree away ffrom their camp (this is called a bear bag). If there is any trace of food at the camp, you can bet a bear will do its damndest to find it. I've woken up to find a hole in my pack where I accidentally left a candy bar wrapper.
I don't know if you'll find any of that useful, but I definitely think there's a lot of potential comedy to be had with bear related ignorance. Or something.
