The initial reviews for I'm Not Rappaport were mixed. "There is something stealthily attractive and winning about Herb Gardner's rambunctiously funny play," says Clive Barnes in his review in the New York Post. Barnes says that it is "precisely the kind of play, full of middle-brow brilliance and crafty craft, that Broadway needs to survive." Likewise, in his review of the play for Today, David Shannon notes: "The jabbering of two geriatrics may not sound like electrifying drama. In this case it is." In her review of the play for Sunday Today, Francis Wheen goes so far as to say that, "Only someone with a heart made of reinforced concrete could fail to be affected."

Not every critic was completely enamored of the play, however. Some critics admitted that the play had some admirable qualities but that it was not for them. For example, in Julius...