Driving to work on cold mornings, Leeanne Cross always felt trapped by her blanket.
As she turned the steering wheel, it flopped off her arms. Her legs shivered as she shifted between the pedals.
Then she discovered the Snuggie.
"My car doesn't have very good heat, so I got the Snuggie for Christmas and I've been putting it on in the car," said Cross, of Cleveland. "I get up at 3 a.m. and I drive an hour from White County to Buford, so that's what helps keep me warm."
Anyone who has watched some cable television has probably seen the commercial for the Snuggie. Billed as "the blanket with sleeves," it has created a word-of-mouth buzz that's made it so popular there is now a limit to how many you can buy.
It's sparked mock Web ads, Web sites devoted to pictures of it and even a morning segment on Good Morning America.
Love it or hate it, the combination of pure polyester fleece and the ability to lower your home heating costs has taken the nation by storm.
Gainesville resident Henry Ward Jr. bought a few Snuggies at Christmas for the women in his family who always seem to have a chill.
"No. 1, Linda stays cold all the time, so when I saw this come on TV I said, ‘I'm going to order her one of those Snuggies because I'm burning up over here,'" he said. "I called in the order and ended up ordering four ... I thought I was just getting two."
The Snuggie, if purchased through television advertising, has a buy-one-get-one-free offer.
Linda said she loves her Snuggie and the family had a real good laugh when they opened their Christmas gifts. They all tried on the new blanket with sleeves and even her grandson wanted to try the Snuggie.
"My grandson is 6 years old ... and Jake said, ‘Nana I look like a choir,’" she said.
The popularity of the product even has amazed Scott Boilen, president and CEO of Allstar Products Group, creator and distributor of Snuggies.
"Every product that we launch we expect to have a certain degree of popularity, and that goal is to obviously sell a lot of units," he said. "But this one has transcended from just an item that we are selling into a part of pop culture.
"It’s pretty amazing. There’s been dozens and dozens of parodies of it on YouTube. The Facebook (Snuggie page) I’m told has 10,000 members."
So why did the Snuggie become so popular? Boilen said his business finally marketed the product right.
Allstar Products Group, which is based in New York, created a direct-response advertising campaign for the Snuggie.
"Blankets with sleeves have probably been around for 40 years," he said. "Like many products that have been around for many years, if the American consumer doesn’t know about them they are not buying them."
But enter into the marketing equation a cold winter and money-conscious consumers, and you have the perfect timing for selling blankets with sleeves.
"We were able to illustrate that the Snuggie is a simple solution to a basic problem people have — they want to be warm and comfortable — and Snuggie allows them to do that."
With the surge in popularity, Boilen said a new line of kid-sized Snuggies is coming out, too.
"We have full line extensions planned for the fall of this year from other colors to different prints, possible licenses ... possibly an outdoor Snuggie that’s waterproof," he said. "We actually are just launching (a child-sized Snuggie) in the next couple of weeks. It will be available in the fall and they’re called Snugglettes."
Snuggie owners Cross and the Wards admit they thought the product was a bit silly at first. And Helen Hyatt, Cross’ boss at Embroidery Impressions in Buford, said she was skeptical, too, when she heard her employee was a Snuggie fan.
"I thought it was the most ridiculous thing out, and my husband and I laughed our heads off," Hyatt said. "Then we start hearing about people that think they’re great."
So great, in fact, that they’re worth stealing.
Cross, who arrives at work before dawn, said she left her car unlocked in the company’s parking lot one morning.
And then the worst happened: Her Snuggie was stolen.
"Somebody thought they would help themselves to the inside of my car and so that was one of the items that they stole," Cross said. "And I was highly upset."
Editor’s note: After contacting Cross for this story, The Times arranged for Cross to get a new Snuggie, replacing her stolen one.