I thought the giant Rubik's Cube was asinine. I think all the banner doodles are asinine.
I don't go to google to play with a Rubik's Cube . I go to google to search for a web page that will let me play with a Rubik's Cube.
All I want from google is a textbox, a pushbutton, and a list of results.
The rest of this is asinine. All of it. Asinine.
That's on you. I think you are in the minority though. The 'service' of the graphic is something that I think Google has done very well. Simplistic, not in the way of your searches, not glaring and goddy and very elegantly done. I, quite frankly, find the graphics interesting. not because they add flavor but rather because they add some interesting information. the graphics themselves are almost always linked to a fact sheet that explains what it is representing. There are quite a few interesting fact that have been brought up as a result of me wondering what the hell the graphic was representing.
It is interesting that they chose not to do the 'standard' with memorial day. It seems like a rather large omission to be overlooked. more likely it was done on purpose.