Celebrate the 80th anniversary of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ with Google’s hidden surprise

By Kim Komando

August 27, 2019

Google’s off to see the wizard and it’s taking us along. To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the classic film “The Wizard of Oz,” Google has inserted an Easter egg in its browser to take us on a trip of sorts to Oz.

You’ll have to do some work to get there, though. But you’ll have an easier time getting to and leaving Oz than poor Dorothy had.

Read on to find out how to get to Oz and back. We’ll also show you some past Google Easter eggs.

There’s no place like the home page

The first thing you do is bring up the Google search engine and search for “Wizard of Oz.” Here’s what you see next:

Now, click (get it?) the ruby red slippers graphic in the right-hand column. The page starts spinning around, which is when you hear star Judy Garland saying “There’s no place like like home.” When the spinning stops, you land here:

Just like the beginning of the movie, your screen turns black and white. Also, notice the graphic of a twister in the right-hand column? Click it and the page will start spinning again with some little extras.

Yep, that’s Auntie Em’s house and it spins right off the page. Then the page itself spins again, all the while you hear the iconic tune that plays in the film as Dorothy bikes away from the mean neighbor. You also hear Garland say “Auntie Em, Auntie Em,” and you’re back in Oz.

Or at least the Google page in color. FYI, even when you’re in black-and-white mode you can still conduct searches. Your results will appear in color.

Google loves its Easter eggs

This isn’t the first time Google had had a little fun with its searches. When “Avengers: Endgame” was about to be released earlier this summer, Google was asking users to type in the name of the movie’s big bad Thanos and this appeared:

If you clicked on the gauntlet, it turned into an animation that snapped its fingers. Of course, in the film before “Endgame,” “Avengers: Infinity War,” Thanos snapped his fingers in the gauntlet and half of the universe’s life disappeared. In Google’s case, half of the results began disappearing.

 Here’s another one. Google, “What is the loneliest number” and you get:

 Oh, Google how you make us laugh. But there are so many other amazing things we can do with you.

Tags: film, Google, home, search engine