TPS is known to have been in existence before the silent film era, but like Lou Gehrig's Disease and Patrick Ewing's Tumor, it entered the spotlight after Tiny himself contracted it. Prior to 1928, when it was renamed, it went largely unnoticed by the public due to the fact it was confined to the tiny Amnesia Islands in the middle of the Pacific. However, worlds collided when Tiny, having become washed up after the creation of "Talkies", sent himself to the Hall of Forgotten Actors on the Islands in 1923, making himself vulnerable to the disease. Tiny decided he would give acting one more chance, and in a clumsy decision, sent himself on the first flight off the islands to New York City.