I watched all those shows as a kid and loved them. Nothing about any of them creeped me out.
I believe the Krofts sued McDonald’s, whose Mayor McCheese had the same rough shape as Puffnstuff.
The only thing I remember clearly from the show (which I watched regularly as a kid) was that the big bad guy had this giant eyeball on a pedestal, with which he’d remotely spy on the doings of his enemies. His minions would come in to clean the eyeball, singing a little ditty that went, “Eyewash, eyewash, eyewash … somethingsomethingsomething”.
It wasn’t until many, many years later (late '80s, early '90s) that I heard the word “eyewash” again, and learned that it was an actual slang term that meant something like “insincere flattery”. It was in an issue of the comic book Justice League International. A smarmy, intergalactic salesman named Manga Khan was introducing himself to Granny Goodness, an immense, muscular, high-ranking grandmother-type on the world of Apokalips. He started going on about how he’d heard tales of her beauty, but now that he could see her for himself he realized the understatement of what he’d heard. Granny Goodness interrupted him with “CAN THE EYEWASH, MISTER!”
If you want some short samples of it, you know, to limit the psychic damage while actually seeing what it is…
They’re selling it on iTunes. You can check out 30-second or so samples of each of the 17 episodes.
You know the H.R. in H.R. Pufnstuf stood for “Hand Rolled”.