《布朗太太的孩子们》一经播出就大获成功。每一集的播出都为RTE赢得了时段，在2011年1月的平均收视率为753500。其中一集的收视率超过了RTE自己的收视率巨头《深夜秀》(Late Late Show)，有85.6万观众收看。然而，评论家们不喜欢这个节目。伯尼斯•哈里森(Bernice Harrison)在《爱尔兰时报》(The Irish Times)上写道:“整部电影的看点完全在于，观众会觉得一个打扮成满嘴脏话的老妇人的男人本质上很有趣。”“如果你这么做了，你就得离开(观看数据简直是天文数字)，但如果你不这么做，而且你认为随着莱斯·道森(Les Dawson)和迪克·埃莫里(Dick Emery)的离开，那就需要很长的半个小时。”《爱尔兰独立报》(The Irish Independent)表示，《布朗夫人的孩子》是那种“让身为爱尔兰人隐隐感到尴尬”的电视节目。《每日电讯报》的山姆•理查兹指出，该剧的喜剧有一种“原始的本质”，包括“一种老式的愚蠢声音和闹剧的混合，在现场直播的观众面前表演，观众们一听到“威利”这个词就会心一笑。”
Mrs. Brown's Boys became a runaway success upon its initial broadcast. Every episode aired won its timeslot for RTÉ, with an average viewership of 753,500 in January, 2011. One episode's rating beat that of RTÉ's own ratings giant The Late Late Show, with 856,000 viewers tuning in to watch. However, critics disliked the show. "The whole thing is entirely predicated on viewers finding a man dressed as a foul-mouthed elderly woman intrinsically funny," noted Bernice Harrison in the Irish Times. "If you do, you’re away in a hack (and the viewing figures are astronomical), but if you don’t, and you think that died out with Les Dawson and Dick Emery, then it’s a long half-hour." The Irish Independent said that Mrs Brown's Boys was the type of TV programme that "that makes you vaguely embarrassed to be Irish". The Daily Telegraph's Sam Richards noted that show's comedy has a "rudimentary nature", consisting of "an old-fashioned blend of silly voices and slapstick, played out in front of a live studio audience who collapse into giggles at the mere mention of the word “willy”.
