Reading between the lines, I guess you are alluding to the specific example jacquesm & swombat refer to - but as a straight answer to the question, I'd say twitter's 'fail whale' was a fun way to take the edge off their frequent early downtime.
You're very right about the fail whale. Although not 100% successful in changing the emotion associated with downtime from frustration to amusement, it went an amazingly long way.