It was a little goofy, but also fitting, to see Martin Short make a Peter Pan-style arrival at the inaugural Canadian Screen Awards Sunday night. 

The event really was a high-wire act for him, and also for Canadian film and television, in a show that sometimes awkwardly balanced between a desire to entertain and a need to make important statements. 

The new CSAs, which combine national film and TV prizes and replace the separate Genies and Geminis ceremonies, could have been either a shotgun marriage or a match made in heaven. 

It's closer to the latter, and well-chosen emcee Short helped make it feel that way with irreverent songs and zingers that hit more often than they missed.
He made fun of all aspects of Canada, a country the Hamilton-born comic proudly called “the greatest country on the face of the Earth.” 

Short was lifted by wire over the audience at Toronto's Sony Centre, singing a parody tune set to Fly Me to the Moon as he pretended to be leering down ladies' dresses.dessy bridesmaid dresses 
Any thought that he might be attempting to out-gross Oscars host Seth MacFarlane quickly vanished (although a bizarre quip about Gordon Pinsent having a “nice rack” came close). 
Short knew his Canuck audience, in the room and nationally on CBC-TV, would love a joke about Argo's Best Picture win last week at the Oscars, being an American film about a Canadian rescue story. 

“It's always great to be home. I flew in on Air Canada — or as Ben Affleck calls it, American Airlines.” 
But Short also worked it the other way around.one shoulder wedding dresses He slyly praised the “originality” of Canadian TV before introducing several stars of The Bachelor Canada and Real Housewives of Vancouver, both Canuck knock-offs of U.S.Beautiful Ball Gown Wedding dresses shows. 

Short wasn't the only Canadian making funny. Alan Thicke, arriving on stage to present an award,Beautiful Favorable Wedding Dresses cracked “I'm here because I'm the affordable (William) Shatner.” 
Yet there's only so many laughs you can wring out of an event that occasionally seemed too determined to be serious. Sarah Polley, winner of the Best Documentary prize for her acclaimed family film StoriesWeTell, showed up with a long list of people she wanted to thank, and a strange remark about CBC's Dragon's Den capitalist kingpin Kevin O'Leary, rather than just saying something meaningful from the heart. 

But to be fair, how could the awards not have been a little preoccupied with matters of weighty concern, in a night where top movie Rebelle (War Witch), a powerful drama about child fighters in the Congo, won 10 awards? 

Rebelle director Kim Nguyen used his acceptance speech to chide Canadian financiers that they need to “be morally responsible and be proud of what you've invested in.” 
On the plus side, the stage was as good or better than anything we've ever seen at a Canadian awards show, bright without being gaudy. 

And it was nice to see well-loved Quebec actress Geneviève Bujold receive a standing ovation just for showing up. James Cromwell, her co-star in the still-unreleased drama Still Mine, had earlier won for best film actor. 

On the downside, some work is needed on show pacing — more than a few winners had to be played off by the band — and it looks like the Teleprompter wasn't firing on all cylinders. 

Even professional funny guys like actor/writer Jay Baruchel (Goon) managed to muff their lines.2013 prom dress Whatever he was trying to say about his hometown Montreal, the Mafia and road repair never quite came off. 

“The joke is that Montreal is crooked and Toronto isn't . . . of course, we do have more Stanley Cups than you guys!” Jay Baruchel said, trying to recover. 
All things considered, the first Canadian Screen Awards was a night to remember, even if we Canucks still need to remember to lighten up a bit. Rough spots will be smoothed out in years to come. 

And as Martin Short reminded us with his smiling sign-off, “It's better to have loved a Short than never to have loved a tall.”