Google Doodle goes comical with digital puppets

Google has come up with an exciting new doodle on Saturday, Sept 24. This time around they are honouring Jim Henson, the creator of the popular Muppets. The occasion is the 75th birthday of Jim Henson. The colourful doodle on Google's home page features the popular characters of Muppets in an animated avatar. With a simple click, the average web user turns into a puppeteer. Google had tweeted on their new doodle, "Become a digital puppeteer today and tomorrow with our homepage tribute to Jim Henson!"

Featuring the original characters of the popular series Muppet that was created by Henson, they are placed right above a button. When you press it, the characters will follow the mouse's movements. A click on the character will also make the character talk.

The popular characters that have appealed to the old and young over the years have been crafted by the Jim Henson Digital Puppetry Studio and recreated on Google by its engineers. Mel Horan, art director at the Jim Henson Company has been quoted as saying, "It's so fitting since Jim was such a prolific doodler. His creative process began with a single doodle and evolved into these amazing characters he brought to life. We tried to capture that and merge it with Google's logo."

The digital version of the colourful characters of the Muppets was developed initially at the Jim Henson's Creature Shop before being handed over to Google.

Henson was born in Mississippi in 1936 and later moved to Washington. A puppetry enthusiast from the very start, he is credited to have created iconic puppet figures like Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, and Cookie Monster. Later, the other popular figures also emerged from the Henson stable named Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Gonzo, Scooter, Lew Zealand, and Rizzo the Rat.

Moving on to the big screen later, his famous Muppets also featured on celluloid. Henson succumbed to illness and died in 1990 at New York.

Google's unique way of remembering achievers through Doodle's have become very popular over the years. This time they have treaded the animated path once again to give users a real feel of the magical world of puppets.

OneIndia News