Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "passable entertainment" with "strong production values, excellent costumes and art direction, and a rich color palette that conjures cozy notions of small-town America in the early 20th century," but he felt it "never matches the 1962 film with its classic performance by the late Robert Preston. It was Preston ... who galvanized The Music Man with his vibrant, masculine authority ... Broderick, by comparison, is cute, wide-eyed, a bit squishy and about as dynamic and intimidating as Winnie the Pooh. His singing is adequate, his dancing heavy and forced. ... Meron and Zadan, who also produced the successful TV version of Annie in 1999 and the excellent Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows in 2001, have developed a winning formula for quality television movies with bigger-than-usual budgets. The Music Man, handsome but misbegotten, doesn't match their usual standard."San Francisco Chronicle, February 14, 2003
