Seth MacFarlane Scopes Out Dunedin Comedian

Who would have thought that tweeting jokes could help set up an interview with one of the biggest names in comedy?!

Mark Leggett from Dunedin has managed to score a job interview with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, who even 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 Seth through a Twitter account he uses to post original one-line jokes.

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

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

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.''

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.''

Source- NZ Herald