Google Celebrates 50 Years of DOCTOR WHO with New Doodle
The day of the Doctor has officially arrived… on Google, that is.
A special Doodle – or should it be “Whodle”? – went live on google.com.au and google.co.nz, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the long-running British science fiction television show Doctor Who.
The Doodle depicts the 11 incarnations of the Doctor, rendered in an “8-bit computer game” style. Clicking on the Doodle allows the user access to a multi-level mini-game. The player chooses one of the 11 sonic screwdriver-wielding Doctors – differentiated by their costume details and colors – and guides him through a handful of mazes, collecting the letters in the word “Google” while avoiding his iconic mechanical foes, the Daleks.
Google Doodles are interactive logos posted on the Google homepage, usually in commemoration of a significant historical event. This particular Doodle was created by a team of five people, led by full-time Doodler Matthew Cruickshank, who happens to be from the UK. “They thought ‘Oh, Matt is English, so he should do the doodle,'” jokes Cruickshank.
The new Doodle should probably come as welcome news to the more than 4,000 fans who petitioned for a Doctor Who 50th anniversary Doodle on Change.org.
The Doctor Who Doodle isn’t Google’s first tribute to the series, though – in August, Google added the TARDIS, the Doctor’s time-travelling vehicle, to Google Street View.
Doctor Who first aired in 1963, and currently holds the Guiness Record for longest-running science fiction television program in the world. The special anniversary episode of Doctor Who, entitled “The Day of the Doctor”, will be aired simultaneously across 75 countries on November 23.
