Harold Bishop - Reception

Reception

Smith has earned various award nominations for his role as Harold. At the 2007 Inside Soap Awards, he was nominated for "Funniest Performance". The following year saw Smith nominated for "Funniest Performance" again and "Best Actor". In 2009, Smith was once again nominted for "Funniest Performance" and "Best Storyline" for Harold's cancer. That same year he was nominated for the "Most Popular Personality" and "Most Popular Actor" Logie Awards.

Television critic Charlie Brooker praised the character of Harold in 2005, saying "Thank God then, for Harold Bishop, who looks precisely the same as he always did – just slightly more so. His is probably the friendliest face on television – a cross between 10 Toytown mayors and a baby". Virgin Media included Harold in their top ten favourite soap characters poll in 2007. They also express that he's become "one of the most popular Ramsey Street residents." After listing his many storylines, Paul Kalina of The Age asked whether there were any plot devices left for the writers to give Harold. He went on to say that Harold's 2008 exit was "a criminally low-key send-off for Neighbours' most colourful and longest-standing cast member. For the best part of two decades, Harold was the moral compass of Ramsay Street, a paragon of the decent-in-a-sliced-white-bread-kind-of-way and nostalgic ideals that distinguishes the squeaky clean Neighbours from a legion of more temperate television soaps. Kalina added that the writers had "better be working up something damned good for when Harold returns."

Ruth Deller of entertainment website Lowculture expressed her sadness over Harold's cancer storyline saying, "Poor Jellybelly. There might have been a little bit of tear-shedding this week at his cancer diagnosis and trip to Madge's grave. We love you Hazza! The current web campaigns to get Ian Smith a golden logie after 20 years on Neighbours also have our support, in a very nominal kind of way." Of his 2009 departure, Deller said "Actor Ian Smith is retiring, which is the kind of behaviour we expect from normal people, not soap stars. He and his wife are going to be 'grey nomads' – the term for Australians who spend their retirement travelling the country in trailer homes. And in a case of art imitating life, that's exactly what Hazza will be doing. To be fair, although I'm sad to see old Jelly Belly depart, it's a nice way to go: much better than him having a second screen death, or moving to live with the whiny Sky. Considering that Harold has had one of the most tragic lives of any Ramsay Street resident (two dead wives, two dead children, a dead grandchild, a dead daughter in law, being missing presumed dead for several years, watching Sky turn from fierce funky teen to moaning nymphomaniac, becoming insane and murderous, being conned by a variety of unscrupulous women and so on), giving him a happy ending is even sweeter." Sarah Megginson of SheKnows placed Harold's departure on her "8 Most Memorable Neighbours Moments".

In 2010, to celebrate Neighbours' 25th anniversary, British Sky Broadcasting profiled twenty-five characters of which they believed were the most memorable in the series' history. Harold was included in the list and they describe him as having no luck in life, they added "Harold Bishop is proof that bad things happen to good people. Harold made Helen Daniels look like a manipulative harpy, and yet the universe still conspired to sweep him out to sea, give him amnesia for several years, and to give his wife Madge terminal cancer. This is all tear-jerking stuff, but the death of his son David's family in a plane crash and Harold subsequently putting a brave face on the situation turned the end of three unloved characters into one of the soap's saddest storylines in years." In April 2012, Harold was immortalised in wax for the Madame Tussauds attraction in Darling Harbour.