Google is celebrating Thanksgiving with another of its signature doodles. This time visitors to the Google.com search page are treated to an animated tale of woodland creatures coming together for a Thanksgiving feast. The animation has also been uploaded to YouTube.
The 84-second clip shows a collection of forest animals bringing food to the table for a Thanksgiving meal. Only the fox comes without any food, but he finds another way to contribute. The video ends with a cheerful Thanksgiving message from Google.
Whether there’s any subtext relating to the desktop browser wars or Android’s share of the mobile market remains to be seen — if you have an opinion you can share it on the clip’s YouTube page (though you’ll have to use your Google+ account, of course).
The history of doodles goes back as far as the history of Google itself. The first doodle was displayed in 1998, a stick figure drawing behind the “o” of Google indicating that founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were away at the Burning Man festival. The second doodle was created to celebrate Thanksgiving in the same year. More recent doodles have covered the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who and Veteran’s Day.
Google promoted the doodle on its own Google+ network with an accompanying message. “Here’s a riddle: what would a fox bring to a Thanksgiving feast? Visit google.com to see a motley crew of woodland creatures gather together to enjoy the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving from Google!”