The Billiken
St. Louis, Missouri
Created by a Missouri art teacher in 1908 -- who said that it came to her in a dream -- the Billiken resembles the spawn of Buddha and a goblin. It was made to be mass-marketed just like the Teddy Bear, which had been a must-have gift item for children and sweethearts only a few years earlier. But the Billiken never really caught on, and the weird figure eventually disappeared from public view.
That should have been the end of the Billiken, and it might have been had it not been for John Bender, who at the time was football coach of Saint Louis University, and who supposedly bore a striking resemblance to the squinty-eyed, pot-bellied creature. The University's teams gradually became known as Bender's Billikens, then just the Billikens.
The bizarre creature is now the University's mascot, and its statue sits atop a pedestal next to the Chaifetz Arena. Students rub its bronze belly and the soles of its feet for luck -- as do people in Japan, where the Billiken, like fading American rock bands and baseball players, has found a second life of popularity.