The mean-spirited Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is coming soon to a theatre near you. The lead character is played by Sacha Baron Cohen.
Before Borat, Cohen was pretty much only recognized (and mostly in the British Isles) as Ali G. As IMDB describes, “Cohen appears on talk shows in character; he has rarely appeared as his real self.”
In 2005, if you stopped 10 people on the street in London, 9 of them would have known who Ali G was. Some British folks can correct me, but if you’d asked about somebody named Sacha Baron Cohen, I’d guess that 1 or 2 might know who he is (and somebody else might mention a certain figure skater).
From what I can gather, Borat is just Ali G’s schtick–deceiving people into saying or doing amusing things–with a new character. Here’s what’s bizarre: only a minority of news outlets are reporting this fact. I first noticed this watching coverage on TV, but have since done a little experiment in Google News:
Articles mentioning ‘Borat’ – 2020
Articles mentioned ‘Borat’ and ‘Ali G’ – 670
Articles that mention ‘Borat’ but don’t mention ‘Ali G’ – 1300
I don’t think there’s any grand conspiracy, but clearly the movie’s marketing people want to distance Cohen from the Ali G character (a huge success on British television, a failure in the movie).
Incidentally, Borat seems to me to be lifted from one or more Saturday Night Live sketches. Most notably, two wild and crazy guys.
Another incidentally: that photo is of an Industrial Light and Magic employee in costume at the ILM Halloween party.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Since the Ali-G Show started the Borat character existed. In each show there was a Borat segment where interviewed various people and groups around Britain.
One of his best was when he met an anti-fox hunting group.
The Borat-Cohen character has the potential to be funny in the usual fish-out-of-water way, but based on his appearance as the opener on Saturday Night Live last week, he’s mostly just tasteless.
And Mahir is pissed off at him too.
I just think he’s a bit annoying. YES, Sascha, I get the JOKE. You are making FUN of them. Awesome.
It’s like being beaten over the head with a Rich Little DVD.
I echo what Johnny K said – Borat was always a character on the Ali G show, as far as I know.
As far as I know, Borat preceded Ali G. by a fair while. In fact, I heard it was Borat who landed the Ali G gig for Sacha at Channel 4.
Dzienkuje.
While the Borat character seems partially based on Mahir (and the Borat character in the movie trailer appears in a skimpy swimsuit, plays ping-pong, and says “I kiss you” just like Mahir), the character was first developed by Cohen in 1995, based on a Russian doctor he had met somewhere.
Another main character Sacha plays is Bruno, watch for this character in more skits once the movie reaches the general public. This movie will ruin Borat as a character because everyone will recognize him and will not fall for his interviews and gags.
About that Mahir double-plus, has Cohen ever admitted to the Borat character being influenced by him? I read in the media of Mahir travelling to Britain to basically, try to cash in on Cohen’s film. He even says he may sue, though I suspect he’s kidding himself.