According to researcher Ibrahim Al-Khulaifi, "In a few months, "Iftah Ya Simsim" became one of the most popular and successful programs for children in many Arab states". Critics called it "one of the most successful pan-Arab collaborations of educators, creators, writers and artists from the Middle East". The show continued to trigger nostalgia in its fans, some of whom watched its reruns well into the 1990s. Rym Ghazal of "The National" asserts that other co-productions made in the region could not compare to "Iftah Ya Simsim", which used actors and children from the region, known as Khaleeji, in their roles. Ghazal also stated, "No Arabic children's television show was as popular and influential in the Middle East in the 1980s as "Iftah Ya Sim Sim" ... That's because it offered an alternative way of learning that hardly existed in the Arab world at the time, just as "Sesame Street" had previously done in the West".