NEW YORK >> As a small kid growing up in the 1980s, I truly believed that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was the greatest show on Earth.

Nothing compared in scale or spectacle. I was hypnotized by the flamboyance of the lion tamer Gunther Gebel-Williams and terrified for the soaring acrobats tempting death. Everything seemed huge and sparkly and full of danger.

By the next decade, Cirque du Soleil, the arty alternative circus that grew into a new kind of juggernaut, made that “greatest show” claim sound a little ridiculous. But when I returned to Ringling Bros., on Feb. 23 at Barclays Center, I watched a daredevil horsewoman, a real-life Indiana Jones, duck between the legs of her ride, moving from one side to the other at full gallop, and I was jolted back to the wonder of my childhood.

This show was Barnum’s final stop in New York after nearly 150 years of performing, part of the startling end for a storied showbiz institution, for decades a symbol of American ambition. (Its final performance is May 21.) Long before television and radio invaded homes, the circus was the national entertainment industry, complete with vast marketing campaigns and global talent scouts. Imagine the response to seeing Disney or McDonald’s go out of business, and you get a sense of what someone from a century ago would think about Ringling Bros’ closing shop.

The company has faded over the decades, its grandeur eclipsed and its animal acts seeming fusty, but make no mistake: Something irreplaceable will be lost when Ringling closes up its tent for good — a tradition of inspiring awe that connected parent to child, generation to generation.

Ringling didn’t invent the circus, whose modern origins date to around the founding of this country, but it supersized it, increasing the blockbuster visuals and the travel. P.T. Barnum and his partners led the first circus to transport its entire show (including animals) on newly built transcontinental railroads and coined the phrase “greatest show on Earth.” After joining with a competitor in 1881 to become Barnum & Bailey, they toured Europe, gaining steam before merging with another competitor, Ringling Bros., in 1907. What resulted was a cultural behemoth.

“Out of This World,” the current show by Ringling (led by its creative director, Amy Tinkham), is a reminder that nothing on a screen can replicate the wonder and urgency of the live circus. Keeping up with the times, this uneven production has some video and some projections, backing up some nonsense story about an evil intergalactic queen, a magic telescope and a journey through space, but these forgettable elements are secondary, mere interruptions to the real matter at hand: the acts.

The highlights include motorcyclists (the Torres Family) zipping around inside a small metal globe, veering inches away from one another, and an incredibly daring group of acrobats performing feats standing on top of horses racing in circles at up to 25 mph. Every couple minutes, a flood of ice skaters or animals pours across the stage, setting up the next death-defying number.

There are some tepid efforts as well, like men on unicycles playing basketball, a few too many flubs like an acrobat falling into the net or a botched juggle. And any time the ringmaster (Johnathan Lee Iverson) sings a pop song, the show evokes a community theater production of “Starlight Express.” As is the case with most contemporary circuses, the comedy lacks any real wit or spontaneity, resorting to lame references to “Jaws” and the song “Ice Ice Baby.”

What really distinguishes Ringling Bros. are the animal acts. They have long been the bread and butter of this circus — one of its most classic posters promises “the world’s most terrifying living creature.” And in this show, they were out in force: llamas, hopping dogs, a donkey, lions and tigers, a kangaroo and a lumbering pig.

This menagerie has inspired furious protests, including activists outside this show holding photos of tigers that read: “Whipped for your entertainment.” For those who want their circuses cage-free, Cirque du Soleil shows that you can offer crowd-pleasing spectacle without lions and tigers and pigs.

In response to the criticism, Ringling stopped using elephants last year, sidelining perhaps their most famous stars. (The word “jumbo” derives from the African elephant P.T. Barnum brought to the United States and showcased in his circus.) Perhaps it’s for the best. The world moves on, even when a link to the past is broken.

When I took my young daughter to see Ringling a few years ago, just as my parents had done with me, it was the elephant that captivated her the most. On the way out, I bought a doll of one for her, with the red sign promoting “Greatest Show on Earth” over its trunk. That stuffed toy sat near her bed for years, long after she had lost interest in dolls. When I threw it out to make room for less childish things, I didn’t expect how furious she would get with me. She says she still misses it.

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