British comedian and serial cad Russell Brand has been named to host the MTV Video Music awards on September 7 in Los Angeles, California. That’s right, not the European version that runs on MTV2, but the real deal, where he’ll follow the likes of P. Diddy, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Arsenio Hall, Dana Carvey, Christian Slater, and inaugural hosts Dan Ackroyd and Bette Midler. Brand received good notices stateside for his performance in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and probably hopes the awards will raise his profile and serve as some early promotion for his next big project, Bedtime Stories, an Adam Sandler family vehicle where the stories a handyman tells his niece and nephew begin to come to life. As great as that particular film sounds, Brand had better throw himself into his hosting gig. It might be the most we see of him of him for a while. [Gigwise]