Freddie Mercury’s Birthday Celebrated with Google Doodle & Freddie For A Day

Today is Freddie Mercury's birthday and Google is celebrating it with the second longest Google Doodle animation they've ever done. The homage pays tribute to a man who is also celebrated by the now annual fundraising event, Freddie For A Day!

DETAILS & VIDEO:

Freddie Mercury Google Doodle

Google celebrates Freddie Mercury's birthday with an elaborate Google Doodle shown September 5th worldwide with a special post-Labor Day edition in the U.S. September 6th. Same doodle, just waiting for the States to get back to work.

Set to the song, "Don't Stop Me Now", the doodle was created by a team led by Jennifer Horn over a three month period. It is second in length only to the Charlie Chaplin Google Doodle.

Freddie Mercury was born September 5, 1946 and is best known as the lead singer for Queen. Guitarist Brian May remembered Freddie in a guest blog post for Google:

"To create with Freddie was always stimulating to the max. He was daring, always sensing a way to get outside the box. Sometimes he was too far out … and he'd usually be the first to realise it. With a conspiratorial smile he would say "Oh … did I lose it, dears?!" But usually there was sense in his nonsense—art in his madness. It was liberating. I think he encouraged us all in his way, to believe in our own madness, and the collective mad power of the group Queen."

One effort to extend that madness is the annual Freddie For A Day event in which Mercury's birthday is celebrated by folks dressing like Freddie and raising funds for The Mercury Phoenix Trust. The Trust was established in 1992, the year after Mercury's death of AIDS-related illnesses, and has since donated "more than $15 million in the fight against AIDS making over 750 grants to charities worldwide."

If you're stuck in the States you can still dress like Freddie and use google.co.uk for searches all day Monday!

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. He is currently relaunching Flux Research to pursue his long-standing obsession with web business models. To suggest music services and related topics for review at Hypebot, please contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.