If you visit Google today, you will see Google sporting a special Doodle/logo for the 71st anniversary of The Wizard of Oz. The first showing of the legendary film was on August 12, 1939, 71 years ago.
Why did Google celebrate it's 71st anniversary? Why not the 70th or wait till the 75th? I am not sure, maybe there is no reason for the number 71 or maybe because there was a re-release in 1971? I doubt that.
In any event, everyone knows the movie, The Wizard of Oz. In fact, as a kid, the movie was a bit scary for me.
Here is Google's special Doodle for the Wizard of Oz:
Like it?
I also spotted some complaints from people seeing "Doodle Balls" animated around the Google Doodle telling users to "Click to view today's doodle." I couldn't replicate that myself, but according to a Google Web Search Help, people are seeing this. I am going to try to track this down and post a video.
Update: Via the comments of this post, this only occurs when you have a custom background set on Google.com. Then Google puts these balls and they circle around, when clicked, it shows you the normal Google home page with the special doodle for the day:
Here is a picture:
Here is a video (for some reason, the balls are not circling in the video):
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Google Blogoscoped Forums.
