Family Guy's Seth McFarlane snaps up Dunedin comedian

Family Guy, directed by Seth McFarlane. Photo / Fox

Delivering one-line jokes on social media has secured a Dunedin man a job interview with Family Guy director Seth MacFarlane.

Freelance illustrator Mark Leggett said MacFarlane paid for his flight and stay in Los Angeles for four days in February so the pair could talk for an hour.

The 36-year-old had come to the attention of the American television series creator and film-maker through a Twitter account he uses to post original one-line jokes.

He started tweeting about seven years ago and has more than 66,000 followers. Most days he tweets about 10 original jokes.

''It's a hobby I do for fun.''

Actress Alex Borstein, who does the voice for Family Guy character Lois Griffin, followed him before MacFarlane started retweeting his messages to his seven million followers.

MacFarlane then sent him a message saying he should be a writer because he was consistently funny.

MacFarlane asked him to write a speculative screenplay but before he could complete it, MacFarlane called asking him to come to Los Angeles.

Mr Leggett, who was born and raised in Dunedin, said the trip was the first time he had left New Zealand.

He suspected the interview was more to determine whether he might have been a ''super weirdo'' or was someone other writers could tolerate working with, rather than being to see whether he could do the job.

Mr Leggett attended the meeting dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, he said.

He first met writers from the movie Ted 2 and after some initial questions, MacFarlane had arrived.

Mr Leggett suspected a writer sent a text to MacFarlane to confirm he was not a crazy fan and was a person who was safe to be around.

MacFarlane was ''super-relaxed'' and unintimidating.

''It was pretty relaxed, probably one of the easiest job interviews I've ever had.''

Mr Leggett met his American girlfriend, Danelle Bunker, through Twitter and the couple lived in Northeast Valley, so moving to California would work perfectly, he said.

He was now playing the waiting game but about two months ago, MacFarlane contacted him saying ''he was still on the radar''.

Mr Leggett said it felt the move to California was a case of ''when, not if''.

''If he [MacFarlane] was going to say, 'No it's not going to happen', I'm pretty sure he'd tell me. He's been very cool.''

Five recent posts

Putting a spiky collar on your pit bull is like drawing a frowny face on your gun.

— Mark Leggett (@markleggett) June 28, 2015

Hall & Oates are cops who went undercover in the soft-pop/rock scene, but got in too deep and produced 18 studio albums and 11 live albums.

— Mark Leggett (@markleggett) June 26, 2015

The new "X-Files" mini-series will centre around the mystery of how Gillian Anderson becomes one thousand times hotter every ten years.

— Mark Leggett (@markleggett) June 26, 2015

Just doubled the value of my car by installing this bad boy (Citrus Fresh).

— Mark Leggett (@markleggett) June 26, 2015

I wrote a novel for young adults about the 99.9% of teens who aren't special in any way, entitled "Unremarkable Ones: The Realistic Saga".

— Mark Leggett (@markleggett) June 25, 2015