"A New York Treasure" --Village Voice

Back to School

trapper-keeper-purple-palm-tree

Mental Floss takes us Reagan babies back with the history of the Trapper Keeper.

Categories:  1: Featured  Pop Culture

Tags:  mental floss  trapper keeper

Share: Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via email %PRINT_TEXT

6 comments

1 rbj   ~  Sep 23, 2013 9:26 am

"In the fall of 1981, second grader Mike Ryan"

Let's see, I was a junior in prep school. Missed out on getting original editions of Boy and October by this band called U2. "Too commercial."

Fucking idiot.

2 Chyll Will   ~  Sep 23, 2013 10:53 am

Effin' Trapper Keeper. I remember kids styling off their TKs and my Mom refused to get one because they were both pricey and the It Symbol of Conformity. South Park pretty much hit the nail on the head, though nobody quite bonded with their TK in that way (close, but no cigar).

3 Bronx Boy in NC   ~  Sep 23, 2013 10:58 am

Why do people keep filing Trapper Keeper under the 80s? It says right there they appeared in 1978, and I certainly wore out more than one while President Carter was still in charge!

4 Alex Belth   ~  Sep 23, 2013 10:59 am

They were expensive. I think I must have had one but I mucked-up my notebooks so quickly they were lost on me. The idea of starting a semester and being organized was appealing but it never worked out. I think those big blue jammies that you could draw on worked better for my sloppy ass.

5 Mr OK Jazz Tokyo   ~  Sep 23, 2013 8:21 pm

Not only would my mother not buy me a TK, being a 'thrifty' Indian woman, she insisted we cover our school textbooks with paper shopping bags from Key Food...you can imagine how this went down at school. The things that stay with you from your youth..

6 kenboyer made me cry   ~  Sep 23, 2013 9:58 pm

I must be old. What's a trapper keeper? In 1981 I was hanging posters in record stores from the Valley to South Central LA, driving a 1966 Jeepster Commando I bought for $1500 (damn, I wish I still had that vehicle), and seeing music just about every night. Other times we would sit at a table for two days straight and think we solved the world's problems...

feed Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via email
"This ain't football. We do this every day."
--Earl Weaver