Google is celebrating the 100th birthday of Lucille Ball today with a special “I Love Lucy” themed Google Doodle. The font used for Google's logo, which appears on a vintage television set complete with wooden console, is in black and white and borrows from the “I Love Lucy” opening credits where the name of the show was written in the middle of a heart.
Why Google Loves Lucy
The old TV set offers seven channels (Google’s Doodle is Channel 1), which will play six different clips from the black and white sitcom Ball made famous, “I Love Lucy,” including what is probably the most famous of the series: Lucy in the chocolate factory. Note: if you click on the "CC" below the speaker, you'll be taken to an unlisted two-minute video on YouTube via this link.
Another famous clip is Lucy stomping grapes. Click on the channel knob on Google’s homepage to enjoy all the clips.
“Lucy’s creativity, absurdity, and ever-changing facial expressions (especially when she was scarfing down candy, stomping on grapes or touting a new energy drink) have brought joy and laughter to generations of viewers,” Google wrote in a blog post. “We’re incredibly happy to celebrate her birthday with a doodle to highlight her brilliant career as an actress and businesswoman."
For those who don’t want to be bothered with sound, Google gives users the option to turn the volume off.
On October 15 it will have been 60 years since “I Love Lucy” debuted on CBS. Ball, known for her trademark red hair, starred as Lucy Ricardo, on which she was married to Cuban-American bandleader Ricky Ricardo (played by Desi Arnaz), and also featured their best friends Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance).
Among Balls’s credits were four Emmy Award wins (with nine attitional nominations) and her show was second on TV Guide’s list of the top 50 best shows of all-time (behind “Seinfeld”).
America Still Loves Lucy (and Lucy Lookalikes)
The series was popular when it originally aired in the ‘50s, and the sitcom really has never lost its popularity since it went off the air in 1957, being released on DVD and remaining in syndication in the U.S. and worldwide to this day.
As Lucy Arnaz, Ball’s daughter, told the Los Angeles Times this week, America’s love affair with Lucy continues to this day.
“I hear the same kind of stories from the same age people decade after decade as if it were the film ‘Groundhog Day.’” Arnaz said of her mother, who was born on Aug. 6, 1911 and died April 26, 1989. “It is bizarre to be me.”
For those who get the Hallmark Channel, an “I Love Lucy” marathon began at 5 a.m. today and will run through 8 a.m. on Monday.
For our friends in Los Angeles, be on the lookout for a whole lot of Lucy’s. The Hollywood Museum is celebrating a new Ball exhibit unveiled Thursday, and part of that celebration includes a look-alike contest tonight (anyone else suddenly have a flashback to the movie “Rat Race”?).
Not to be outdone by Hollywood, Jamestown, New York is trying to break a world record for gathering together the most Lucy lookalikes.
