Thanksgiving 2011 Google Doodle: 12 Easter Eggs in Google's Turkey

By Melanie Jones | November 23 2011 4:36 PM

Photo: Google Doodle

Wizard Turkey

How to get it: tap each of the turkey's feathers until they're all purple. Click on the feet to get purple slippers, and cycle through the various hat options until you get the wizard's cap. (DON'T click the turkey's wing- it will shift into random.) The turkey will magically gain a sparkling wand and a white rabbit. Want more! Keep clicking!

Photo: Google Doodle

Disco Turkey

Click the feathers to make them neon blue. Then scroll through for roller skates and an Afro. Suddenly, your Thanksgiving has entered the 1970s.

Photo: Google Doodle

Fancy Turkey

Want to make your turkey snazzy for Thanksgiving 2011? Combining black hair, feathers and shoes gets you a bow tie, top hat, walking stick and monocle. I say!

Photo: Google Doodle

Pirate Turkey

Start with the Fancy Turkey, and switch the monocle to an eye patch and the shoes to a peg leg. You'll get a pirate's hat, a treasure chest, a hook hand and a parrot in one flash of Google Doodle magic.

Photo: Google Doodle

Astronaut Turkey

Start with the black-haired model and get the feet bare, clicking through for silver feathers. Alien life will appear, and you'll get to see one small step for turkeys, one giant leap for all Google-kind.

Photo: Google Doodle

Surfer Turkey

Get this Google Doodle by mismatching your turkey's feathers, giving him shaggy hair and donning flipflops. Surfing (Thanksgiving) U.S.A.!

Photo: Google Doodle

Google Turkey

If you give your Thanksgiving turkey a pinwheel hat, bar feet and Google Chrome-patterned plumage, you end up with this mysterious creation. Whose name is on the name tag? Is this modeled after the once-fledgling company, or the child of an employee? In any case, a turkey on a bicycle may be the best Thanksgiving gift ever for 2011.

Photo: Google Doodle

Turkey Geek

Start with the Fancy Turkey, and change the monocle to glasses. Give him sneakers and fall feathers, and you'll score this Thanksgiving Google Doodle a notebook, pocket protector and robotic playmate.

Photo: Google Doodle

Turkey Princess

Make your turkey a brunette with pastel feathers and high heels. She'll become a fairy princess, complete with tiara, pearls, tea set and wand.

Photo: Google Doodle

Ski Turkey

Pair a knit cap and bare feet (Brrr!) with blue feathers, and your Thanksgiving Google Doodle will suddenly be ready to take on the ski slopes. Too bad the designers didn't give the little guy a jacket.

Photo: Google Doodle

Football Turkey

Scroll through until you get a football helmet and cleats, then give your turkey blue and white NFL feathers. The Google Doodle will get a football and No.1 fan sign, and the helmet makes this doodle look like it's sticking out its tongue.

Photo: Google Doodle

Tofu Turkey

This is our all-time favorite. To get a vegetarian version of the Google Doodle, you need to combine the flip flops from the Surfer Turkey and the Afro from the Disco model with an all white wardrobe. Happy Thanksgiving 2011!

It's almost Thanksgiving 2011, and Google has launched a special Google Doodle for the coming holiday: a customizable turkey.

Unlike most other Google Doodles, this turkey changes appearance with the click of a mouse, as users change its feathers, hat, footwear, and other accessories. There are thousands of different options for designing your online turkey for Thanksgiving 2011, with a design based on the hand turkey drawings elementary schools are making around the country.

Creating hand turkeys remains one of my favorite elementary school memories, Google Doodle designer Willie Real wrote on Google's blog. This year, you have the option to skip the actual mess involved with making these classic Thanksgiving decorations and craft a unique turkey from the comfort of the Google homepage.

If you think that's all the Google team has up their sleeve for Thanksgiving 2011 however, you must not be familiar with how much engineers and online designers love planting inside jokes like do a barrel roll and other secret tricks.

The Google Doodle Turkey is capable, along with producing thousands of individual combinations, of laying several easter eggs or special results depending on what accessories users combine. There are 12 that Google has confirmed (and we've found) so far, all of which trigger an accompanying animation.

Sites like the Christian Science Monitor and numerous blogs have uncovered the 12 Google Doodle easter eggs for this Thanksgiving 2011 turkey. Follow our step-by-step instructions to un-lock all 12, or just click through our Thanksgiving 2011 slideshow and avoid the 2,000,000+ tries necessary to get them all on your own.

Here are the 12 Google Doodle easter eggs for this year's Turkey Day. We've explained how to unlock each one, if you're up for the challenge. If not, simply sit back, scroll through, and enjoy some adorable turkeys on the day before Thanksgiving 2011