Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon: Google Unveils “Bacon Number” Search Feature

September 14, 2012 by Hollywoodite

This is probably the best anything to happen anywhere ever. Really. After a week of more royal invasions of privacy, and Top Models rotting away from meth addictions, and Dina Lohan seemingly drinking ahead of a televised interview, it’s about time for some more lighthearted news. Google unveiled its “Bacon Number” Easter egg, representing the number of degrees/ projects from which any entertainer or non-famous person is removed from actor Kevin Bacon.

Try it, just type someone famous’ name followed by the words “bacon number.” For example “Britney Spears bacon number.”

Bacon’s own Bacon Number is obviously zero. In other examples, some of the closest removed are Shirley Temple, whose Bacon Number is “3,” some of the furthest removed include William Rufus Shafter who’s a “7.”

Some of the numbers are wrong though, apparently pulled from Google’s Knowledge Graph (not, for example, IMDb). For example, Justin Bieber’s Bacon Number is listed as “3″ when it’s really only “2″ because of a cameo in MIB3, which starred Josh Brolin who was in Hollow Man with Bacon. Another incorrect example is Humphrey Bogart whose number is “3″ when it should be “2″ because Bogart starred in The Wagons Roll At Night with Eddie Alber and Albert co-starred in The Big Picture with Bacon.