SNL: Steve Carell / Kanye West

Saturday Night Live's 31st season kicked off tonight with host Steve Carell (Anchorman, "The Office").  Here are some random thoughts on tonight's show:

* SNL is now broadcast in HD.  Looks great.  Comcast continues to do their best to make it not work properly though.

* Rob Riggle's not in the cast anymore?  That's a shame.  I'll miss his "that guy" and "oh it's him" characters.

* New cast member Bill Hader instantly won me over with his killer Al Pacino impression in the "Anderson Cooper 360" sketch. It would be fine by me if he does it in every show this season, just as long as its not the only thing he can do. I'm not sure why they made him look like Quentin Tarantino when he turned into a vampire in From Dusk Till Dawn though.

* Ashlee Simpson next week? Hmmm. Pulling out the big guns so early though with Jon Heder? THE Jon Heder? Wow. By the way, who the hell is Jon Heder? (Yes, ok... I see that he was Napoleon Dynamite. Timely choice there.)

* Kudos for bringing in Mike Myers for the pre-Kanye West song bit.

* Kanye West doesn't care about people who like music.

* Horatio Sanz filled in for Tina Fey on Weekend Update. Interesting experiment, but yet not. Hopefully they'll rotate other cast members in that spot until Tina comes back.

* Amy's Paris Hilton joked slayed me.

* The other new guy... eh... get a hair cut, hippie. Then comb it. Then do something that's funny outside of your circle of friends.

* Did Kanye just say in his second song that the government invented AIDS? He can't actually believe that too. And are these seriously the two best songs on his album? Nice showcase, jackass.

* As always, the dumbasses in master control at First Coast News cannot figure out how to time their commercial breaks, so we joined the last sketch already in progress. On a positive note though, it was the hideous Debbie Downer... wisely delagated to the final slot on the show.

* Did they purposely give the host nothing really funny to do? He might as well as not have even been there. You're not going to get anyone to tune into "The Office" that way... and that show desperately needs ratings help.