Trapper Keeper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trapper Keeper is a brand of loose-leaf binder created by Mead. Popular with students in the United States and parts of Latin America from the 1970s to the 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 (originally a metal snap closure).
Trapper Keepers usually had a theme, such as a cartoon, television show, or video game (e.g., Sonic the Hedgehog). Between 1988 and 1995, "Designer Series" Trapper Keepers featured abstract designs and later computer-generated images.
The binder got its name 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 falling out of the Trapper's pockets when it was closed. Trappers were three-hole punched so that they could be put in any notebook, including the Trapper Keeper.
In 2007, a new version of the Trapper Keeper featured a magnetic closure in place of the Velcro closure, a customizable front cover, and binder dividers instead of Trapper folders.
[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 (in the manner of Tetsuo from Akira) 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 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, although 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 referenced Trapper Keepers 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 on September 9, 2006.
- In a fifth season episode of Dawson's Creek, Jen gives Dawson an E.T.-themed Trapper Keeper for his first day of film school.
- In the song "Pull the Pins Out" from Army of the Pharaohs' The Torture Papers, Celph Titled raps, "We keep heist plans in a Trapper Keeper. That’s organized crime."
- The Trapper Keeper was a feature on an episode of VH1's I Love The 80's. Music artist John Mayer described it as "the genesis of obsessive compulsive disorder for my generation."
- A Trapper Keeper is one of the selectable playing pieces in Parker Brothers' Trivial Pursuit1980s edition game.
