ALTAMONT — Tommy Breen from Little Falls, New Jersey learned how to swallow swords when he was 14 or 15 years old. When he showed his mother and father — a real-estate agent and owner of a moving company — what he could do, they “weren’t pleased,” Breen said.

So he kept on practicing in secret and never mentioned it again until after he graduated from college, when he told them he was joining the carnival.

He’s been with the sideshow “World of Wonders” for 13 years now. “They accept it now,” he said.

The show features sword swallowing; knife throwing; illusions such as “the guillotine where we take somebody’s head off”; the Human Blockheads, who hammer nails into their own heads; Bitsy Manhattan as the Electric Lady, also known as Madame Volt-aire, who is put into an electric chair and then “turns on light bulbs with her skin”; circus-style hula hooping; magic; juggling; and Luella Lynn, the “strong woman” who bends metal around her legs and rips phone books in half, Breen said.

“It’s a family show, safe for everybody,” he added.

The performers — there are currently six — live where they perform, said Breen, whose stage name is Gozleone. “We have rooms built into the truck. Pretty close quarters, but it’s a lot of fun.”

They don’t have TV, but they do have occasional movie nights, where they “sit around and watch some DVDs,” Breen said. They have internet access, and on days off they sometimes go somewhere where there’s free wi-fi and hang out.

The show’s main season is from May to November, with “sometimes a couple of months in winter when we do stuff.” The rest of the time, Breen stays with family or friends, plays in a band at home, sees friends, and does “normal life stuff.”

The schedule does make it hard to find a romantic partner, said Breen, who is 36. If you date another performer in the show, you will be around them 24/7, he said, but if you try to have a relationship with someone who’s not in the show, you almost never see them.

But World of Wonders does have one couple in the cast right now: Dizzy Diamond, who swallows swords and throws knives, and Trixie Turvy, who spins hula hoops, escapes from straitjackets, and is the target for Diamond’s knives. Diamond throws knives around Turvy, not only while she is standing still against a knife board, but also while she is spinning on the so-called West Texas Wheel of Death. “It’s an interesting relationship,” Breen said.

The World of Wonders has been in existence for 70 years. Currently, Breen has been traveling with the show longer than anyone else, although he is far from holding the record: a fire-eating dwarf named Pete “Poobah” Terhurne was with the show for 59 years until his death in 2012. His photo remains at the top of the group’s Facebook page, “just in memory,” Breen said.

There aren’t any two-headed babies anywhere to be seen. “We moved from being a sideshow to being a variety show, like ‘America’s Got Talent.’ We have a little bit of everything, instead of just being weird or gross,” Breen said.

Do they watch “America’s Got Talent,” which abounds with knife throwers and people pounding nails into their own heads?

Not all that often, because they don’t have a television. Breen catches it sometimes at his parents’ house, or on YouTube.