I'd have said that for impressing people with small pieces of code something like SecondLife scripting would be ideal. You can manipulate objects in a 3d environment using simple code. Who doesn't enjoy programming a gun?
Also COM scripting on Windows (and presumably Applescript on the Mac).
Sure there's a lot of special keyword magic involved, but nothing will get people more excited about programming than seeing how they can easily automate their routine tasks to make their life easier - that's what programming is supposed to be about anyway.
You could probably stuff Node into this category too, if your target is the type to be impressed with writing their own basic web server in 10 lines of code.
