Cowsay was one of the first "hacky show your friends" command.

I still use it when I want to impress someone.

I've been using this a lot. Check this out:

$ fortune | figlet | cowsay -n -f tux

or

$ fortune | cowsay -n -f dragon

even this!

$ fortune | cowsay -n -f dragon | cowsay -n | cowsay -n -tux