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Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend

12 Clomp Program

19 Feb 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the background of Joey, the film preservationist?

3.524 - 12.417 Unknown

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash callconan. Okay, let's get started.

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13.218 - 16.303 Conan O'Brien

Hey, Joey, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan with Conan O'Brien.

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16.323 - 38.415 Joey

Hey, thanks for having me. Hey, Joey, how are you? Pretty good. How are you? I'm good. You know, it's so funny because I was told just before I got on with you that I've met this gentleman before, this Joey guy, and I thought, well, I won't remember that because I meet so many people all the time. And... Then someone said, yeah, you were at a bookstore in Cambridge, Mass.

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39.076 - 44.945 Joey

And he took a quick film of you. And I remembered it because it was so unusual.

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Chapter 2: How did Joey get involved with home movies?

44.985 - 72.87 Joey

You were very nice. And you said, hey, Conan, nice to meet you. Can I take a quick film of you? And you held up a very cool picture. Home movie camera. Yes. Oh, what? Look at that. This is the one. What year is that from? Maybe 75. So, Joey, really cool to see you again. And I love that you walk the earth like Johnny Appleseed taking little clips of people. What did you do with my clip?

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73.231 - 74.032 Joey

And can I sue you?

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Chapter 3: What makes home movies significant in history?

75.154 - 95.563 Joey

I've been sued before, so... Oh, okay. I don't know how much you're going to get for me. Well, I see some cool stuff behind you and I want it. Yeah. Joey, what did you end up doing with that clip? Did you release it anywhere or is it just in your vault? I'm using it for the film about my life. Is that true? So, yeah. Okay. Well, I'd like to see a piece of that when it comes out, you know.

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95.543 - 98.407 Joey

You'll have to wait a few years. That's okay. I'm excited about that. All right.

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Chapter 4: What unique experiences does Joey have with home movie footage?

98.467 - 118.152 Joey

Tell us about yourself, Joey. It says here that you're a film preservationist. You're in Toronto right now. There are obviously film preservationists that say work on the director's cut of Lawrence of Arabia and try and restore it. You've had some experience with that, but mostly you focus on people's home movies. Is that correct? That's right.

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118.713 - 121.357 Joey

I love home movies so much. And you love them why?

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121.718 - 149.623 Unknown

I think that micro history is so much more telling and fascinating than macro history. I mean, I know you studied history. So I just think that I think they're one of the coolest historical documents to ever exist. And there's so many universal themes in home movies, but then there's so many little individual things that you can tell just about a family or relationship dynamics. Yeah.

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Chapter 5: How does Joey handle requests from clients regarding their footage?

150.064 - 152.067 Unknown

I don't know. They're really beautiful.

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152.448 - 180.872 Joey

I love seeing home movies from the 1930s, the 1940s, 50s, 60s, because... I know what you're saying. You can read about history, but when you see someone's grainy old footage of their Christmas and you really see what people are wearing, what the furniture looks like, how many like electrical cords are going into the wall in some unsafe way. What? Really?

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180.892 - 211.537 Joey

Well, yeah, you just see these little things that don't exist now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see mannerisms. And also you see, I think people have become very media savvy and camera savvy. And, you know, everyone has a video device in their pocket right now, their phone. And everybody's very aware and knows how to behave. And there's a real innocence when you see that old footage.

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211.597 - 213.38 Joey

People wave at the camera.

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Chapter 6: What interesting stories does Joey share about famous personalities?

213.66 - 243.304 Joey

They're excited. And I love, I'm addicted to, Instagram is always serving me up, film that was taken in like 1903 in New York. Because I just look at how people walk, how they dress, the kind of, and they're very, they're kind of shy, but sometimes they're very excited. They're not knowing and ironic and cynical about the camera, the way people can be now. Is that true?

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244.381 - 245.322 Joey

I think that's pretty true.

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246.083 - 264.27 Unknown

Yeah, I was watching the Mel Brooks documentary, which you did great interviews for. And it's just so fascinating to see Mel Brooks shooting Super 8 footage on the beach. And all the people behind him are so excited and they're waving and people are smiling. And today people get so annoyed. They don't know what you're going to do with the footage.

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264.671 - 269.477 Unknown

And it's just like people are oversaturated with... Video content, I guess.

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269.497 - 279.566 Joey

It doesn't feel like it's not special anymore. Whereas when you look at really old home movie footage, there's kind of a, oh, wow, they've got a moving camera.

Chapter 7: How does Joey's work differ from traditional film preservation?

280.427 - 309.515 Joey

And even when, because the Kennedy family, it was a very wealthy family, and Joe Kennedy Sr. worked in Hollywood making motion pictures, he had access to really nice color film cameras. And so there's all this really cool footage of... you know, John F. Kennedy and his brothers and sisters goofing around in front of a really great color film camera in the late 30s and early 40s.

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309.615 - 323.711 Joey

And you you can exactly be there. You know, you can be there. A lot of them are taken in Florida and they're just like, oh, wow, I am there. I'm seeing exactly what's happening. You're not removed from it. You're you're in that moment.

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324.131 - 335.133 Unknown

It feels like being in the present, even though you're Transporting yourself to the past, I rarely feel such a strong sense of presence than when I'm watching home movies.

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335.474 - 343.111 Joey

So people will take their home movies, they'll bring them to you, and sometimes they have odd requests, don't they?

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343.492 - 343.592

Yeah.

344.18 - 344.601 Unknown

Yeah.

Chapter 8: What future projects is Joey excited about?

346.103 - 360.129 Unknown

Some people have bad relationships with their siblings. So I've had a few people say, can you cut my sister out of this footage? She's a bitch. No, we can't do that. Can you do that?

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360.189 - 363.614 Joey

I mean, that's... First of all, you can do it. It costs extra, but I can do it.

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363.815 - 364.656 Conan O'Brien

Oh, my God.

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364.676 - 374.31 Joey

Now, when you say cut them out, you mean you remove those pieces of film or you do some AI trick where you remove their image and replace it with a refrigerator?

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376.133 - 397.653 Unknown

I spend a very long time figuring out exactly how to crop the images or mirror the images so that... I can get just the person who gave me the footage and like their parents who have passed away. And the sister might be on the side. And sometimes I make the edges fuzzy to get to remove their faces.

397.673 - 401.737 Joey

Do you ever add, like instead of cutting them out, add devil horns?

403.099 - 403.499 Unknown

Yeah.

403.639 - 412.591 Joey

On request. Yeah. Devil horns, a Hitler mustache to like a brother or a sister, you know. Uh, that is so strange.

412.611 - 417.603 Unknown

I would think you'd want to cut out all, all your siblings so you can live out your fantasies of being an only child.

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