In honor of Charlie Chaplin's 122nd birthday, Google has crafted a second live-action doodle for its homepage.
The doodle is currently only displaying on international versions of Google's homepage, including Australia, the UK, France, and Hong Kong. Chaplin's birthday is not actually until Saturday, so perhaps it will hit the U.S. Google homepage as we move closer to April 16 (Update: it's now live on Google.com).
Google later tweeted that it "got started early" and would leave the video doodle on its homepage for 36 hours. "True pieces of art, Chaplin's films still feel fresh today even though some of them are nearly a century old. We hope that our homage gets people talking about his work and the many virtues of silent film," Doodler Ryan Germick wrote in a blog post.
The video features members of the Google doodle team (with Mike Dutton as Chaplin) in an homage to the silent film star. There are references to Google sprinkled in, of course, with "Chaplin" reading a "Google" newspaper and an artist painting a still life of the Google logo. The blog post also includes some behind-the-scenes photos.
Chaplin was born in 1889 in London, and started his career in entertainment at age 14, eventually traveling to the U.S. in 1910 as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company, according to his official Web site. His film debut came in 1913 when he joined the Keystone Film Company and, later, the Essanay Company.
He ventured out on his own with an independent film company in 1917 and signed a contract with First National Exhibitors' Circuit a year later for distribution of his films. By 1919, he joined with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to found the United Artists Corporation. But before that could get off the ground, Chaplin had to complete his National Exhibitors' Circuit contract, so he produced his iconic film, "The Kid,' in 1921. Chaplin then moved to United Artists, where he produced eight feature-length films.
As CharlieChaplin.com notes, his talents extended beyond film and he wrote at least four books and was also an accomplished musician and composer. He died on Christmas Day in 1977, and was survived by eight children.
Google's last video doogle celebrated what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. Set to the song "Imagine," the wispy seeds of a dandelion blew away and morphed into a black-and-white animation of the word "Google," with Lennon's signature glasses forming the double o's.
Google has made headlines for its recent doodles, meanwhile, including an interactive undersea-themed drawing in honor of author Jules Verne's 183rd birthday and 17 holiday-themed doodles that were live for two days in December.
Recently, it was revealed that Google obtained a patent for its popular homepage doodles, covering "systems and methods for enticing users to access a Web site."
For more on Google's doodles, see the slideshow above.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 12:15pm Eastern with additional info from Google.