Trapper Keeper

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For the South Park episode, see Trapper Keeper (South Park episode).

A Trapper Keeper is a brand of loose-leaf binder created by Mead. Popular with students of all grades in the United States and parts of Latin America during the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, it featured sliding plastic rings (instead of standard snap-closed metal binder rings), folders and pockets to keep schoolwork and papers, and a wraparound flap with a Velcro closure but originally had a metal snap closure. They usually came with a theme, like a cartoon, tv show, or video game (e.g. The Sonic the Hedgehog Trapper Keeper). It had another theme, known as "Designer Series", which featured many abstract designs which were computer-animated in later years. These particular binders were billed as Trapper Keeper: Designer Series.

It was called the "Trapper Keeper" because it was sold in combination with pocket folders designed by Mead called "Trappers". Trappers were different from other pocket folders in that the pockets' three sides connected with the bottom, outside edge, and top, as opposed to the bottom, outside edge, and spine of most pocket folders. This design prevented papers from coming out of the Trapper's pockets when it was closed. Trappers had standard three-hole punches in them so that they could be put in any notebook, including the Trapper Keeper.

[edit] Trapper Keeper in popular culture

In an episode of South Park, the so-called Trapper Keeper Ultra Keeper Futura S 2000 destroys the town and eventually takes over the world, and a robot from the future by the name of "Bill Cosby" has to destroy it.
In the film "Wet Hot American Summer" one of the characters taunts another "You just have like a Trapper Keeper full of appointments, right?"
The title character in 2004's Napoleon Dynamite uses a Trapper Keeper, even though the film is set in the early to mid 2000s, many years after the popularity of it waned.
In an episode of Family Guy, Meg asks Tom Brady if he can sign her Trapper Keeper.
Five Iron Frenzy sang "Junior High Schooler, with pencils in my pocket and my Trapper Keeper busted" in their song "Suckerpunch."
A main page on Homestar Runner is titled "Trapper Keeper!!" and is notepad-themed.
Webcomic Sluggy Freelance Character Torg mentioned his old Trapper Keeper in the comic on September 9th 2006
Industrial Noise Musician Charles Howes from Asheville, NC uses the name The Trapper Keepers as a moniker.
In a fifth season episode of Dawson's Creek, Jen gets Dawson an ET themed Trapper Keeper for his first day of film school.
In the song "Pull the Pins Out" featured on Army of the Pharaohs "The Torture Papers" album, pharaoh member Celph Titled raps "We keep heist plans in a Trapper Keeper. That’s organized crime.”