Freak shows were popular in the United States from the mid 19th to mid 20th centuries, and were often, but not always, associated with circuses and carnivals like the famous Ringling Brothers and P.T Barnum & Bailey combined circus among others.

Changes in popular culture and entertainment, as well as changing attitudes towards physical differences and difformities and new moral values and laws, led to the decline of the freak shows as a form of vernacular entertainment and human exploitation.

In a small town of Florida, still live people who used to be part of this era as well as new performers who keep the tradition alive with a "lighter" and more acceptable version, based in general on shocking and extraordinary performances such as fire eating people,fakirs and contortionists rather than physical anomalies.