Circus celebrates 140th anniversary

There is something a little extra special about the circus when it rolls into town this week.

It's the 140th anniversary of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey event and the 200th birthday of the legendary P.T. Barnum — definitely something worth celebrating.

"FUNundrum!" features 130 performers who speak 15 different languages, 100,000 pounds of Asian elephants, tigers, horses, ponies, llamas, and goats.

And like the days of yore, the show will roll into town on a mile-long train.

"Well, it's the greatest show on Earth and that's what you should expect," said ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson.

"We've been the longest-running entertainment of any kind in the history of the world, for 140 years. We've been around longer than Major League Baseball and Coca-Cola."

Though times have changed since the heyday of the big show, much of it is the same.

"We're in the miracle business," Iverson said. "There is mystique."

"It's 2010, I'm 24 years old, and I'm really into pop culture," said clown Billy Murray. "But it's really awesome to step back into this piece of history. It's just really cool to travel by train from city to city."

The performers, the crew and animals all travel by train and live on the train.

"Three hundred and seventy-five people live on board the train," Murray said. "We travel with people from six different continents. It's so great to be meeting people from all over the world."

"Ringling Brothers has been around longer than eHarmony, we've been successfully mating people for almost two centuries," Iverson said, as his young daughter played in the background.

"You're on the road together, people get married, babies are made, legacies are born." Iverson himself met his wife on the Ringling train.

"We started dating and married five months later," he said. That was nine years ago, and now their two kids live on the road, too.

"They attend the school and nursery here," he said. "It's wonderful. They're exposed to so many cultures, and they just really enjoy being kids."

Along with the family focus on the train, there's a family focus off the train as well. Both Iverson and Murray mentioned the circus' "All-Access Pre-Show" as one of their favorite parts about being with Ringling.