Fred Garbo, left, and Daielma Santos comprise the Inflatable Theater Co.

Fred Garbo always provokes the same reaction.

“When somebody asks, ‘What do you do for a living?,’ I say, ‘I get in large nylon bags and animate them.’ They look at you like you’re nuts,” Garbo says.

As founder of the Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater Co., the performer first created the character Fred Zeplin, an inflatable man who bounces like a beach ball. That concept expanded to a fully realized visual spectacle unlike any other. Garbo’s Theater Co. utilizes pneumatic suits – sometimes blown up into the shapes of animals or furniture – and blends them with juggling, dance and comedy.

“I always tell people to come laugh at inflation,” says Garbo, who developed the show through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

“You’re seeing pieces that have been tinkered with for 10 or 12 years. We’ve been working on every nuance, every part. That’s the way vaudeville used to be: They said, ‘If you had 10 good minutes, you could tour for 10 good years.’ We definitely have more than 10 good minutes.”

His act has been seen on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and extended tours in countries such as Japan, Morocco, Spain, China and Chile.

“When you play somewhere again, you get this whole variety of people who can’t wait to drag the people who missed it last time – because it is hard to describe,” he says.

The company suffered its first major personnel shift this summer when Garbo’s partner Daielma Santos went on maternity leave. He says her replacement, Krista Paulsen, has adjusted well to the challenge.

“We’ve been training the whole month of August, and Daielma has been working with her since June,” he says.

Garbo first became prominent in this specialized performance style when playing the cumbersome character Barkley the Dog on TV’s “Sesame Street.” Now the 53-year-old artist is enjoying the autonomy of exploring his own material at his own pace.

“We’ve become weekend warriors,” Garbo says. “Friends of mine who’ve ended up in Cirque du Soleil and do eight to 15 shows a week really do get fried. I get to do two or three shows a weekend, so we never get tired of the show.”