"The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo" received positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the first season of the show an 81% "fresh" rating based on 16 reviews with an average rating of 7/10. The critical consensus is: "With great guests, fun games, and a lot of silly songs, "The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo" is a fitting bedtime show for tots that parents may even enjoy as well". Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100, assigned a rating score of 70 based on 8 critic reviews, meaning favorable reviews for the first season.