Google Doodle celebrates Halloween

This Halloween, Google is offering users a trick or treat. The search engine’s Google Doodle is of course themed for the spooky holiday, but it also celebrates animals. The interactive doodle was created with guidance from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Once you click the Halloween Google Doodle, mysterious music plays and you are offered six doors to open. Clicking on the doors reveals an animal. Each furry friend performs a trick — or a treat.

There’s a wolf that plays basketball, an octopus that dresses up as a ghost, and a jaguar that plays the piano — but these are just the animals’ “tricks.” Choosing the “treat” option behind each door reveals animal facts: for example, did you know that unlike other big cats, jaguars like to swim?

The animated game was created by a team of artists, animators, producers and engineers, and it will run for 24 hours in 40 countries around the world.

While this Google Doodle provides educational facts about animals while celebrating Halloween, past October 31 doodles have been very different. One of the first Google Doodles appeared in 1999, when the two o’s in Google were turned into pumpkins. This doodle only appeared in the U.S.

On Halloween 2001, the company featured a simple illustration incorporating a ghost, pumpkin and cat into the Google logo — nothing like the elaborate, interactive doodles we see today.

The October 31 doodle is not always Halloween-themed for every country. In 2010, a doodle honoring Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai on his birthday appeared in Japan. In 2005, Australia got a Google Doodle celebrating the Melbourne Cup. And in 2010, Greece got a doodle that marked the 2,500th anniversary of the marathon.

So, while October 31 is Halloween to most Americans, Google acknowledges the date has different meanings around the world.

Each animal comes with a trick – a fun animation – and a treat – an interesting fact. Google