A British town made famous by Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy creation Ali G has been renamed.

Staines in Surrey, England was famously lampooned by the British comic as the hometown of his rapper character in popular TV series Da Ali G Show and 2002 movie Ali G Indahouse.

However, officials in the area have now voted to change the town's name to Staines-upon-Thames in a bid to distance themselves from the Ali G link.

Local councilor Colin Davis tells Britain's Independent, "There is no doubt that the name Staines lends itself readily to humor. We are actually a green and leafy town, with l...

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has every reason to celebrate on Thursday - he turns 40.

The funnyman is famous for creating comedy characters Ali G, Borat, and Bruno - and between his alter-egos he's pulled pranks on stars including David Beckham, Eminem and Paula Abdul.

Cohen, who's married to actress Isla Fisher, keeps his personal life private, but there's no hiding his big day.

To mark Cohen's 40th, WENN has compiled 10 fascinating facts about the star. Happy birthday, Sacha!

- Born in London in 1971, Cohen was raised in a Jewish family and attended the U.K.'s prestigious Univer...

In honor of All Fool's Day, we've compiled a list of the ten best prank TV shows of all-time. If you're looking for some pranks or practical jokes to play on your friends this April Fool's, these TV shows will provide you with some great ideas. Here are the top ten prank TV shows ever:

10. Crank Yankers (Comedy Central, 2002-2005; MTV2, 2007)

Created by Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, and Daniel Kellison, Crank Yankers featured crazy puppets re-enacting actual prank phone calls turned into skits. Several comedians like Tracy Morgan, Sarah Silverman, and Jimmy Florentine lent their voices to p...

A few months ago, MTV's Jersey Shore came under attack for representing Italian-Americans in the wrong light with all the tanning, hairstyling, and use of the slang terms "Guido" and "Guidette." Some critics have gone so far as to call the MTV reality program the most offensive TV show ever. But when it comes to the most offensive shows ever, Jersey Shore isn't even on the radar. Let's take a look at ten TV shows that sparked controversy during their run on television, and truly are the most offensive ever.

10. Jackass (MTV, 2000-2002)
Jackass aired for only three seasons on MTV, but durin...

Sacha Baron Cohen, Josh Brolin and "Flight Of The Conchords" star Jemaine Clement are frontrunners to land lead roles in the third "Men In Black" movie, according to Internet gossip.

The trio are reportedly in talks to replace Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in the alien-fighting action comedy franchise.

BloodyDisgusting.com reports Brit Cohen and Clement are both being considered for an agent called Yaz.

Both "Men In Black" films have made over $1 billion globally.

Click for more great Sacha Baron Cohen pictures:

Documentary films, the traditional kind that the average person simply ignores, have long since given way to the popular faux documentary. These films, unlike their parent genre, have been and continue to be wildly successful. In fact, they are now so tightly woven into our culture that we truly forget what they are.

Christopher Guest's films Best in Show, For Your Consideration, and A Mighty Wind were all based on a fake, typically unseen camera crew following a group during or to an event. Sacha Baron Cohen also took this approach, with an obviously irreverent tone, with Da Ali G S...

Sacha Baron Cohen is facing more legal woes - comedian Pauly Shore has alleged a scene in new movie Bruno is taken from his film Adopted.

In Bruno, Cohen's outlandish character collects an African baby out of a box on an airport baggage carousel before turning to the camera and saying, "Angelina's got one, Madonna's got one, now Bruno's got one," in a gag joking about stars who adopt foreign children.

The funnyman reportedly sent Madonna flowers and a sympathetic note during her recent battle to adopt Malawian Mercy James, to apologize for the skit.

And now director Shore allege...

British funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen has had the last laugh in a legal battle over his TV comedy Da Ali G Show - a judge has dismissed the lawsuit because "no reasonable person" can take the character seriously.

A woman sued the star over claims he defamed her during a sketch on the show in 2004. She was referred to only as Jane Doe throughout the legal proceedings but has now been named as Heddi Cundle, a British woman who lives in the U.S.

Cundle, who met Cohen 20 years ago in Israel, took legal action after the comic used her name in a skit as wannabe rapper Ali G. She sued for...

If you thought Borat was funny, wait till you get a load of the trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen's new film, Brüno. The film is informally titled "Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt", which is dead on! Check it out!

*NOTE: this is a redband trailer, which means it's meant for MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY, and it does have a lot of sexual references. You've been warned.

More recent 'Bruno' News:

-Bruno Pulls In Stars For Movie Soundtrack

-Bruno...

Sacha Baron Cohen seems to be rustling more features in his upcoming Bruno project which remains untitled. For those that don't know, Bruno is his gay Austrian fashion correspondent character which originated from Da Ali G Show. According to an article in The Sun, in Cohen's Bruno movie, a main characters is a black model called Jesus who wears a loincloth and crown of thorns.

The Sun goes on to say "Test audiences in the US have seen an early edit and the more religious members at the screenings failed to see the funny side."

The release date for this Bruno project so fa...

Tourism chiefs in Australia want to recruit Sacha Baron Cohen's comic creation Ali G in their latest advertising campaign - and hope the track-suited character will convince Britons to move Down Under.

South Australia agent Bill Muirhead this week launched a campaign to urge Brits to consider emigrating to state capital Adelaide; citing commuter town Staines - Ali G's hometown - as a reason to escape the United Kingdom.

And Muirhead hopes Baron Cohen's character and his links to the area - which is just outside London - will help promote the project. In a letter to the star's re...

NEW YORK (AP) - Borat is dead. Sacha Baron Cohen tells The Daily Telegraph that he's retiring the clueless Kazakh journalist, as well as his alter ego, aspiring rapper Ali G.

''When I was being Ali G and Borat I was in character sometimes 14 hours a day and I came to love them, so admitting I am never going to play them again is quite a sad thing,'' the 36-year-old actor-comedian says in the British newspaper's Friday edition.

''It is like saying goodbye to a loved one. It is hard, and the problem with success, although it's fantastic, is that every new person who sees the Borat m...

Happy Birthday to Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe (1982), singer Ashanti (1980), actor Sacha Baron Cohen a.k.a. Ali G (1971), legendary football receiver Jerry Rice (1962), Sky High actress Kelly Preston (1962), singer/actress Marie Osmond (1959), 'Red Rocker' Sammy Hagar (1947), singer/songwriter Paul Simon (1941), baseball legend Eddie Mathews (1931; d. 2001), British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925), legendary comedian Lenny Bruce (1925; d. 1966), The Wiz actor Nipsey Russell (1924; d. 2005), jazz pianist Art Tatum (1909; d. 1956), and deadball era baseball player Rube Wadde...

Funnyman Adam Sandler has hailed Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen one of his all-time heroes - praising him for his extraordinary "balls."

Sandler, 41, is good friends with Baron Cohen, best known for his quirky comedy incarnations Ali G and Borat.

He says, "He's one of the funniest people I've met. He's got more balls than anyone. I had them when I was 12. But he just keeps going."

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)

Isla Fisher is this week's 'Maxim Hot 100' girl! The girl that Vince Vaughn loved to hate and hated to love in The Wedding Crashers comes in at 91 on Maxim's "Hot 100" list for 2007. Head on over to Maxim's Isla Fisher page to check her out!

Born in Oman and raised in Australia, Isla first caught our attention as the aptly named Mary Jane, the curly-haired blonde hippie love interest of Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) in Scooby-Doo before moving on to I Heart Huckabees and then making all men wonder if having a psychotic girlfriend is worth all the great sex one can handle (our take: you bet!...

Master of disguise Sacha Baron Cohen hits the road to explore America as the crude Kazakstani reporter Borat in feature mockumentary Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan that brings one of the Da Ali G Show star's most popular characters to life on the big screen. Also on DVD: Let's Go To Prison and Fast Food Nation.

Sacha Baron Cohen is being sued by a woman who claims he called her a "bitch" and a "minger" while performing as his Ali G character. Baron Cohen stands accused of defaming the woman on TV program Da Ali G Show during a 2004 interview with writer Gore Vidal, during which he allegedly said, "Me used to go out with this bitch called Heddi Cundle."

Baron Cohen, as Ali G, is then said to have gone on to call her a "minger" - British slang for an ugly woman - and claimed he impregnated her.

Her name was later edited out, but uncut versions of the sketch have since appeared on video w...

Back in the spring of 2000 a little known comedian named Sacha Baron Cohen landed a recurring series on HBO called Da Ali G Show. The series, an import from Baron Cohen's native England became a cult hit and featured the comic as a (very) dumbed down ghetto-punk named Ali G, who landed all sorts of interviews with unsuspecting guests from Donald Trump to Buzz Aldrin, and Newt Gingrich to Gore Vidal. In the show, Baron Cohen also played two other characters who conduct these mock interviews, "Bruno," a gay fashionista type; and "Borat," a reporter from Kazakhstan.

Taking his Borat cha...

Tim Burton has hailed Sacha Baron Cohen's singing ability in the face of media reports suggesting his songs have been cut from the forthcoming "Sweeney Todd" movie. The Borat and Ali G creator plays Signor Adolfo Pirelli - the arch-rival of Johnny Depp's Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street - in the big screen version of the hit musical.

And Burton laughs of claims he had instructed Cohen to rap his songs instead of singing them.

He says, "Sacha will surprise everyone. When he auditioned for me, he sang 'Fiddler On The Roof' without accompaniment and was incredible. St...

A Turkish man is convinced that he was the inspiration for comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat and is demanding an apology and profits from the surprise hit film. Mahir Cagri, 44, a freelance journalist, became an internet celebrity after posting a personal website in 1999, featuring unintentionally amusing photos of himself playing ping pong or the accordion or sunbathing in skimpy bathing suits.

The title character in Baron Cohen's new film Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan was first developed for British TV program Da Ali G...

Happy Birthday to Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe (1982), singer Ashanti (1980), actor Sacha Baron Cohen a.k.a. Ali G (1971), legendary football receiver Jerry Rice (1962), Sky High actress Kelly Preston (1962), singer/actress Marie Osmond (1959), 'Red Rocker' Sammy Hagar (1947), singer/songwriter Paul Simon (1941), baseball legend Eddie Mathews (1931; d. 2001), British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925), legendary comedian Lenny Bruce (1925; d. 1966), The Wiz actor Nipsey Russell (1924; d. 2005), jazz pianist Art Tatum (1909; d. 1956), and deadball era baseball player Rube Wadde...

Ali G star Sacha Baron Cohen was booed by audiences at the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday night after a film projector broke 30 minutes into his new film Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan.

British funnyman Cohen attempted to calm the crowd by going onstage as his character Borat, saying, "If you don't give these people money back, I crush you!"

But the audience were furious after the screening was cancelled following an hour of waiting for the projector to be fixed and continued to boo the star. One audience member said, "It ...

NBC has released the list of guests and musical performers on Late Night With Conan O'Brien for the remainder of the month of January. Some notable guests include Elijah Wood, Kate Beckinsale, Nia Long and Queen Latifah. The full list is below...

These listings are subject to change. More performers/guests are still TBA. Check local listings for exact showtimes.

Friday, Jan. 6:

Alan Cumming, Sarah Chalke, Living Things

Monday, Jan. 9:

John Leguizamo, John Tesh, Christy Martin

Tuesday, Jan. 10:

Jimmy Carr

Wednesday, Jan. 11:

LL Cool J, John Daly, O.A.R.

...

Actor Adrien Brody hates giving interviews to foreign journalists, because he's convinced he's being made a victim of British comedian Ali G. Brody, Naomi Watts and Jack Black are among the stars of the anticipated King Kong remake who have been on a huge press tour promoting the movie. But Brody admits he's finding it increasingly difficult to speak with reporters whose first language isn't English.

He says, "You have to speak to journalists from all over the world. And I find it amazing that they've sent some journalists (to America) that I don't even know if they speak English. Or t...

Da Ali G Show star Sacha Baron Cohen's alter-ego Borat Sagdiyev's jokes about his 'homeland' have angered Kazakhstan's government so much, they are now advertising their country's achievements in The New York Times.

Entitled 'Kazakhstan In The 21st Century', the four-page feature disputes the British comic's claims pastimes in Kazakhstan include gypsy catching, goat punching and drinking horse urine. The spread carries testimonials about the nation's democracy, education system and the power and influence enjoyed by women.

Cohen recently responded to Kazakhstan's threat to sue hi...

Ali G star Sacha Baron Cohen is facing legal action for mocking Kazakhstan.

The comic is famous for playing ill-fated Kazakh TV reporter Borat in his 'Da Ali G Show' - and has portrayed his homeland as full of drunks who enjoy punching cows.

Earlier this month, the 34-year-old hosted the star-studded MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon as Borat. Thousands of viewers saw the star pretend to arrive in an 'Air Kazakh' propeller plane flown by a pilot clutching a vodka bottle.

Now the Kazakh Foreign Ministry has said it may move to prevent Cohen presenting the country in a "derogat...