Craig McNamara writes

Last week, in the New York Times Sunday Magazine , columnist Rob Walker tries to unravel (yes, that's a pun) the "Snuggie" phenomenon. A quick refresher (as if you really needed one; The Snuggie has become as culturally ubiquitous as pet rocks of the 1970's): Walker begins: Perhaps you’ve heard of the Snuggie — you know, the blanket with sleeves. Or rather, a blanket with sleeves: the Slanket, the Freedom Blanket, the Book Blanket are all quite similar, and all predated the Snuggie. But why the Snuggie? Surely no one thought that the startling success of this oddity — sales topping $60 million — was a story of innovation, or an engineering or design breakthrough. One theory is that the Snuggie has caught on because it’s comforting — as if, in these recessionary times, we have become a nation of Linuses... A second theory holds, more prosaically, that when rates for television commercials fell as mainstream advertisers started pulling back, infomercial-style peddlers ...

When an art form -- even an "illegitimate" one, like advertising -- has been around long enough, imitation and appropriation can happen unknowingly and probably, inevitably. Case in point: This 1952 wine ad, employing an artistic illustration to impart sophistication and distinctiveness: An approach surprisingly similar to the ads of Absolute Vodka some 30 years later: