Crikey Roadtest: the Snuggie, the blanket with sleeves

Here in the Crikey bunker we have Sky News on high rotation as we feverishly produce the daily Crikey email each day.

Maybe it’s the global financial crisis or maybe it’s a dream demographic match up but Sky News seems to be  running a lot more ads from mail catalogue American companies in the Demtel mould — think the ShamWow, the GoDuster etc.

But hands down our favourite advertised product is the Snuggie.

What’s a Snuggie*? A blanket with sleeves. Think of perhaps the most ludicrously bad piece of clothing your Auntie or Nan ever bought you — and multiply it by a factor of 10. Wear it by yourself to look like something from Hogwart’s School of Magic and Wizardry.Wear it with your family members (as the below ad for Snuggie so beautifully demonstrates) to capture the cult member look or pass for a member of the Polyphonic Spree.

One day last week, like magic, someone somewhere sent us a Snuggie. We don’t know how it got here but after watching the infomercial close to a billion times we finally had our own Snuggie.

So this morning I thought I’d give it a go. Is it really like they say? I was intrigued. Time to try on the Crikey Snuggie to see if it lived up to the hype.

Did it keep me totally warm? Well yes it did. But considering the mercury in Melbourne has plummeted to sub 10 degrees and the heating in our office is broken and constantly somewhere between Santiago and the Sahara  I was quite warm anyhow.

Time to test it in tougher temperatures. I wasn’t game to go outside in the backwards dressing gown — until Crikey’s Deputy Editor Sophie Black challenged me to look like a complete idiot on Flinders Lane in Melbourne.

So like the happy Snuggie family featured in the ad who sat in the bleachers watching an undoubtedly embarrassed  family member playing sport I took the Snuggie out of the house and into the wild.

Was I warm? Yes, yes I was.

Was I embarrassed? Damn straight.

Firstly you can’t walk in a Snuggie. Getting to the  SevenEleven proved quite an effort.

Time to see if I could survive the excitement of the TAB, swaddled in a Snuggie. And if anyone picked on me due to my sheer ridiculousness I could test out the Snuggie’s fighting capabilities.

Alas, “Gentle Spirit” didn’t place in Race 5 at the Gold Coast. Not the Snuggie’s fault.

Next stop was buying coffee for a few of the guys back in the office. For the first time during the journey someone recognised what I was wearing.

“Is that a Snuggie?” asked the barista.

“Indeed,” I replied.

That’s two thumbs up for Snuggie brand recognition.

Waiting for my order I discovered handling a newspaper is a little tricky with a Snuggie.

Next up — test whether you can drink a coffee and have a cigarette at the same time whilst wearing a Snuggie.

Was my cigarette in danger of turning me into a ball of flaming 100% royal blue polyester? Absolutely. Dangerous? Ridiculous? Highly flammable? Yes, yes and yes.

So what else could I do in a Snuggie?

I discovered I couldn’t use a leaf blower.

And riding a bike was impossible.

However a public telephone box was surprisingly Snuggie friendly.

So what’s my Snuggie synposis?

Don’t leave home with one.

Coming soon… “Part 2: 101 ways with Snuggie-generated static electricity, with your host Sophie Black” and “Part 3: Snuggie brand recognition: a Swanston Street sample group, as tested by Eleri Harris.”

* Just three easy payments of $19.95 plus postage and handling.