Sideshow

The renewed attention to these feats has prompted a new round of oversimplified or inaccurate explanations, leading some inexperienced people to attempt them without adequate training often resulting in injury and sometimes even death.

Moreover, viewing "human oddities" became distasteful as the public conscience changed, and many localities passed laws forbidding the exhibition of freaks.

John Jr. performed all the live acts himself for several years including sword swallowing, fire eating, bed of nails blade box and electric chair.

The show featured acts reviving traditional sideshow stunts and carrying some of them to extremes, and "fringe" artists (often exhibiting extreme body modification) performing bizarre or masochistic acts like eating insects, lifting weights by means of hooks inserted in their body piercings, or stapling currency to their forehead.

Circus historian and collector Ken Harck ran the Brothers Grim Sideshow, which toured with the OzzFest music festival in the summer of 2006 and 2007.

Sideshow celebrity and multiple world record breaker Chayne Hultgren 'The Space Cowboy' owns Australia's largest traveling oddity museum 'The Mutant Barnyard' and along with his partner Zoe Ellis 'AKA: Zoe L'amore' they run 'Sideshow Wonderland', one of the world's most successful sideshows described as a modern high energy human oddity exhibit or freakshow cabaret.