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When McCarthy interviewed Crutchfield for her Mental Floss profile, she asked him to share his favorite note. So when he sent out the first prototypes, he included a feedback card. People bought more than 75 million of them.ĬHANG: Crutchfield himself was curious why. SHAPIRO: The Trapper Keeper never ushered in technological apocalypse, but it did take over the world in a way. Because it will hybrid with all those other processers and generate a whole new era of technological darkness. Cartman, you cannot buy your son, Eric, another Trapper Keeper - not now, not ever.ĮLIZA SCHNEIDER: (As Ms. KYLE MCCULLOCH: (As Bill Cosby) And so you see, Ms. But it stayed relevant even into a new millennium when "South Park" aired a Terminator-themed episode about it. I was definitely into, like, the Lisa Frank.ĬHANG: And, of course, who could forget that Velcro closure?ĬHANG: The Trapper Keeper launched in 1978, and its popularity exploded in the 1980s. You could pick a Trapper Keeper that had a dog on it or a soccer player on it, or you could go with a designer series. MCCARTHY: It was something that allowed you to kind of express your personality in a way that a lot of other school supplies didn't. She profiled Crutchfield in 2013 and wrote that the Trapper Keeper's style made it stand out. And so I think the Trapper Keeper is the origin of that for me.Įrin McCarthy is editor-in-chief at Mental Floss. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Traps in all my papers.ĮRIN MCCARTHY: I'm someone who really likes to be organized. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Trapper? UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Everything I need's in my new Trapper Portfolio. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) That's all you're taking to class?
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The Trapper Keeper, as you might recall, was the hot school supply to have in the 1980s. Bryant Crutchfield, the inventor of the Trapper Keeper, has died.
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