 "10 favourite Google Doodles of 2011")
Another year come and gone, another set of brilliant Google Doodles come and gone. Some of them were almost as iconic as the icons they celebrated. Here is our list of our top 10 favourite Google Doodles that were visible in India this year.
10. Jim Henson: September 24th 2011
For the Muppets
A lot of us grew up on the Muppets, and for those who didn’t, Cookie Monster and Big Bird are no strangers. Henson was the creator of the Muppet Show and Sesame Street. The Doodle celebrating him was interactive, letting you move each character representing the alphabets of “Google” with a hand beneath them. The characters would also do a few things randomly, for example, the red character making the first ‘o’ would have his glasses tossed in the air and the red monster making the ‘e’ would eat the character making the ‘l’. This Doodle celebrated Jim Henson’s would be 75th birthday.
9. Thomas Edison: February 11th, 2011
For luminosity
Google celebrated one of the greatest scientists on his 164th birthday. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb was celebrated on the 11th of February, last year with a Doodle in motion. The Doodle featured machines, including a telegraph (the first ‘G’), which types out ‘G’ in Morse code and a light bulb, which brightened and dimmed.
8. Earth Day: April 22nd, 2011
For the planet
Google Doodled for Earth Day, a day when we’re supposed to think about our planet. The Doodle featured an interactive “cross-cultural garden”. The highlight of the Doogle might just be the penguin diving into the river. Or the fish that swims up the waterfall and gets caught by a bear. A fun Doodle for all the nature lovers.
7. Uncle Pai: September 17th, 2011
For Suppandi
Another back to childhood Doodle. Google celebrated the 82nd birthday of Indian cartoonist, Anant Pai on the 17th of September. The Doodle was a comic strip that was representative of Uncle Pai’s artistic styling as seen in his work, the Amar Chitra Katha. His arguably most notable character was Suppandi who is visible in the Doodle on the cover of a comic book in the second panel. Pai passed away in February of 2011.
6. Total Lunar Eclipe: June 15th, 2011
For the moon
Google wanted the experience of the longest lunar eclipse in 11 years to be global. The company partnered up with Slooh to provide a live feed of the eclipse in the Doodle. Before and after the live feed, a video was embedded in the Doodle with the moon going through an eclipse. This Doodle was also the first Doodle that showed up worldwide at the same time, and did not wait till midnight in each country.
5. Charlie Chaplin: April 16th, 2011
For slapstick comedy
Google celebrated the 122nd birthday of Charlie Chaplin with their first live action video Doodle. The Doodle was shot by Google in Niles, California, the setting of many Charlie Chaplin films, and features a short film in the style of Charlie Chaplin with three interconnected settings. The Doodle ran for 36 hours and as a bonus, Google also released a video with behind the scenes footage of the video they made for the Doodle.
4. Mark Twain: November 30th, 2011
For Tom Sawyer
On the 30th of November, Google doled out possibly its loveliest Doodle, yet. There was no motion or interactiveness, but the style of the Doodle and the story chosen for it was plain heartwarming. A lot of us grew up reading the stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. To see the white fence scene from “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” took some of us back a little. The Doodle celebrated the 176th birthday of American author, Mark Twain.
3. Jules Verne: February 8th, 2011
For the ocean
February 8th saw the first truly awesome Google Doodle of 2011. The Doodle celebrated the 183rd birthday of author, Jules Verne and literally took you, 20,000 leagues under the sea. The word ‘Google’ was a submarine window and using the lever on the side of the word, you could look upwards and downwards under the sea. Even Captain Nemo was there. Those using smartphones with accelerometers didn’t have to use the levers; you could explore the ocean by just tilting your phone up and down.
2. Freddie Mercury: September 5th, 2011
For Freddie
When you Doodle for Freddie Mercury, your Doodle can be nothing short of iconic. Google used the song, “Don’t Stop Me Now” to commemorate the 65th birthday of Queen front man, Freddie Mercury. The Doodle featured a video starting out at a concert and going to some pretty trippy places, before coming back to the concert. The lyrics of the song are closed captioned and you can go back and forth in the song as you desire.
1. Les Paul: June 9th, 2011
For the solid body electric guitar
If there’s one Doodle everyone’s going to remember from 2011, it’s this one. The Doodle celebrated the American musician and the inventor of the solid body electric guitar. It was because of this Doodle that Facebook temporarily became the second most common way of people procrastinating at work. The Doodle placed strings on the alphabet making up “Google” and when you hovered your cursor over the strings, they would actually sound a note. YouTube videos went viral with people playing actual songs on Google’s virtual instrument.
Special Mentions
Alam Ara: March 14th, 2011
For Indian talkies
This Doodle also brings nostalgia to film buffs. It celebrates the first Indian talkie, Alam Ara, by Ardeshir Irani. The movie, in addition to being iconic for being the first Indian talkie, was also famous because the police had to come in to regulate the crowd at every theater it was shown. The movie was also the first Indian movie to have a song in it.
Gregor Mendel: July 20th, 2011
For genetics
This one is for the genetics nerds. Google celebrated the birthday of the Father of Modern Genetics, Gregor Mendel with a Doodle of peas. The Doodle represented dominant and recessive alleles, represented by the sweat pea plant Mendel observed to come up with his theories.
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