Goodle Doodle celebrates Charlie Chaplin
A new Google Doodle has appeared on the search giant’s homepage, and it’s a video celebrating what would have been the 122nd birthday of Charlie Chaplin.
Chaplin was a (mostly) silent movie star born in London in 1889 but who then moved to the U.S. in 1910. By 1921 he was acting in and directing films, and 1940 heralded The Great Dictator, his first talking picture. After marrying four times and fathering 11 children Chaplin died in Switzerland on Christmas Day, 1977, at the age of 88.
If he was still alive, Saturday (April 16) would have been his 122nd birthday. To celebrate the occasion Google has produced a short silent film with the same look and in the same style as his classics. The film is a direct homage to Chaplin and features members of the Google Doodle team, including Mike Dutton as Chaplin himself.
The video – which also includes references to Google itself – appeared on the site on the 15th and will remain there for around 36 hours. Luckily for those of you reading this after the video has disappeared from the Google homepage it’s available to watch on YouTube, another acquired Google property.
Google seems to be getting increasingly imaginative and ambitious with its Doodles. This is the first one which has featured live-action video, but it’s following hot on the heels of a video animation commemorating John Lennon and his hit Imagine, and interactive versions of the logo featuring playable Pacman and some colored balls allergic to the touch of a cursor.
The more the merrier, I say, and the more creative the better as well. Google Doodles not only liven up the homepage most of us land on several times a day but they also remind us of people, places, and events we may have forgotten about. Which has to be a good thing, right?
