A giant lion with no trousers on and an evil, vile looking talking ball. Hooray for the World Cup mascot Goleo 6 and his traumatizing sidekick Pille (which looks like it's wearing some kind of gimp mask). Some more good & bad WC mascots can be found here.

China olympic "Friendlies" are beautiful and blend in the cultural reference a bit better than Athen's controversial walking pots, which while's ballsy and original gave me nightmares.