Joe Medeiros, former head writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (among other trades), lived in Glenside from 1979 -1992 and was a well-known figure in the community.

In May, Medeiros made Glenside Local’s headlines after he published a story chronicling 216 early 1900s-era glass negatives found in the basement of the Glenside house he bought in 1978. A week later, he published a follow-up piece which identifies the mystery photographer.

We reached out to the writer/photographer/director for additional details. Medeiros explained over a phone call from his home in Westlake Village (a suburb of Los Angeles) that the project is more than four decades in the making.

He said his latest task is trying to put all 216 negatives laid out on his dining room table in chronological order.

“It’s a rabbit hole that keeps getting deeper and deeper. We’re not having any company for awhile until I get all this sorted out. The photographer, John L. McDermond, labeled a lot of them, which helps, but roughly 30 percent aren’t labeled or dated,” he said. “I’m tracking down the photographer’s family, so it’s become a wider project than I originally anticipated. Within the next two to three weeks I should have it pretty buttoned up.”

Medeiros said he purchased the house on Woodlyn Avenue from Meta McDermond, who had been living there since the house was built in 1908.

“She was in her 90s then and was reluctant to sell because she’d lived there from Day One. Nothing had really been done for years. There were five outlets in all three stories. We found newspapers from World War II, along with other treasures,” he said.

Then he found the box full of glass negatives.

“I was doing a lot of photography at the time, and I couldn’t believe an amazing gift had fallen in my lap. I put them into archival envelopes to preserve them,” he said, noting that the cache sat in his closet until the early 2000s when he decided to scan them.

“I created a master file. I’m also a writer by profession, so I opened a Substack blog in April and thought I’d share the story of these negatives. It got a lot of traction. people were blown away by the quality,” he said. “Meta and her son passed away, but I was recently contacted by the great-great-great grandson of Ulysses Simpson Grant McDermond, who was born in 1864. I’ve been contacted by other members of the family, but they’ve been distant relations.”

According to Medeiros, the current owner reached out to him and mentioned the updates to the interior.

“My wife, Justine, was an elementary school teacher when we lived out there. We didn’t have a lot of money to do those renovations back then, so it’s good to see it modernized,” he said.

In the mid-1980s, Medeiros took a correspondence course, which led to his big break.

“I went to Temple University, and I had a professor who ran an ad agency. I took some advertising courses, they thought I was a decent writer, so I worked a few jobs, including one in Jenkintown. I wanted to be in television or film, and Jay Leno was looking to buy jokes. He came to Philadelphia, I wrote some jokes for him, and he called me up at 12:30am,” he said. “Woke us up. We thought someone had died.”

Medeiros says he started writing from Glenside when Leno was still the guest host for Johnny Carson. When Leno took over The Tonight Show in 1992, he and Justine moved to Los Angeles. He served as the show’s head writer until 2010, creating jokes for the monologue, products, props, and more.

The famous “Jay Walking” segment was coined by Medeiros.

“I was thrilled to be part of that part of television history. I wrote and I oversaw the bits written by other people. I did a lot of travelling around the country and the world. We shot bits all over. It was a daily show so there was a lot of material,” he said. “The challenge was always to keep people tuned in after Jay’s monologue.”

In December 2001, he took an opportunity to entertain US troops in Bahrain for Christmas.

“We were there for a weekend. Jay did a show, we shot some pieces to air when we got back, and it was a good thing to do at the time since it was post-9/11. It was a 21-hour flight,” he said. “We played Risk for six hours, and you realize you’re still 10 hours away. Brutal.”

In the early 2000s, he and comedian Tom Green (pictured in the feature image on the right) performed the show’s annual New Year’s Eve live special in New York City’s Times Square.

“I did a number of bits with Tom, including ‘The Most Interesting Person in America.’ We traveled to all the states in alphabetical order. We didn’t get through all 50, but we did quite a few,” he said. “He’s a really good guy, and he’ll work all day long. He was always willing to help, very funny, creative. Not averse to doing silly things. In Colorado on a frozen lake, he stuck his head through a fishing hole just to see how cold it was.”

Now retired from show business, Medeiros says he misses the laid-back Glenside lifestyle.

“I miss going to the Glenside Pub and Rizzo’s Pizza, the 4th of July parade,” he said, noting that he’s wearing his Glenside 4th of July Parade T-shirt as he spoke. “It’s a great neighborhood. My kids were born and raised there in their early years. We had a good friends and really good neighbors. Our kids all played together. The Keswick Theater reopened while we were there. I miss being in a welcoming small town with a neighborhood. Out here, it’s very different.”

In August 2022, Medeiros aired his award-winning documentary “Mona Lisa is Missing” on WHYY Philadelphia.

Medeiros credits the film, which he worked on for decades, as the nudge that got him into show business.

“My wife helped produce it, and my status with The Tonight Show gave me some credibility to get some key interviews,” he said. “Making that film was always my life’s goal. I never set out to be a writer for late night television. Unexpected detours are a wonderful thing.”

Medeiros’ Substack can be found here. We’ll be in touch with updates.

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Photos: Joe Medeiros