Something I'm really happy with is the psuedo-3d effect on the cat using a displacement map.
I took the cat sprite (http://dn.ht/picklecat/mesmercat.png) and made a "depth map" (http://dn.ht/picklecat/mesmercatdisplacement.jpg) where white is closest and black is furthest. This information is used to determine how far to move the underlying pixels. It's enough to give a subtle illusion of depth.
1. Doesn't crash video card driver. 2. Doesn't crash browser. 3. Doesn't show empty tab. 4. Doesn't cause 100% CPU usage. 5. Doesn't hang browser forever.
Works.
I created it in Adobe Illustrator using a gradient mesh: http://i.imgur.com/kuuFVO2.png
Illustrator's gradient mesh tool lets you create a grid of points where you can choose a colour for each point. I overlayed the grid onto the sprite and estimated the distance at each point.
(if it wasn't obvious, playing around with pixijs!)