The company which has become the all-pervading service provider in the world of internet has its funny side too! The simple homepage has garnered a revered following all over the world. But to add a special touch the Google logo is often replaced by really amazing pieces of art, called doodles. Over time they have turned from being mere pieces of art to interactive widgets that have enthralled millions of Googlers world-wide.

It all started when the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin created a doodle in honour of the Burning Man Festival in 1998. Subsequent doodles were created by an outside contractor until they asked an intern, Dennis Hwang to create a doodle for Bastille Day in the year 2000. He has been creating them ever since. Clicking on the doodles will lead to a search result page related to the topic of the doodle.

Ranging from the birthdays of famous people to anniversaries of special events and special days, Google doodles have celebrated them all on the homepage of their site. Some special mentions are the doodles depicting the 50th anniversary of LEGO, doodles for American holidays such as the Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving and Independence Day, one with Mahatma Gandhi’s face on his birthday which is also observed by UN as International Non-Violence Day, the Google-pacman doodle marking the 30th birthday of Pac-Man; the legendary arcade video game, the interactive doodle for Jules Verne’s 183rd birthday and the doodle of Charlie Chaplin which was also their first video doodle. The background of the main page was turned to black to observe the Earth-hour this year.

The pac-man doodle was the first playable logo and the heavy demand to the creation of its own site at www.google.com/pacman. Another notable doodle is the guitar doodle created to celebrate the 96th birthday of Les Paul. The user could play on the guitar and also record the tunes he plays. On June 15th 2011, Google displayed the realtime photos of the lunar eclipse as their doodle.

Google is also organising the doodle4google contest for school students and awards scholarships to the winners every year. Every year different topics are given on which doodles are to be submitted by the participants. The winning doodles are showcased on the website for everyone to see.

Yesterday Google celebrated the 65th birthday of Freddie Mercury, the late famous lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. The doodle depicted a video with an animated concert of the Queen band with Freddie singing the 1978 hit ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’.

We wish to see a lot of doodles from Google to cheer us up everyday and remember the great people and events of our past. You can checkout all the doodles at www.google.com/logos.