I can indeed confirm that I was deeply scared of him when I was a kid (mainly because I wasn´t THAT much into Zelda as I am now) which led me to have memories of HMS being a really terrifying character when in reality he´s not as bad as I remember him.
For example, I used to think that he would kidnap me and other kids and turn us into masks and/or puppets. I also remember my brain confusing him with Specimen 6 which led me to believe for a long time that HMS had NO pupils like at ALL.
Last month though, because I got super into Spooky´s jumpscare mansion (mainly specimen 6). I remembered that the Happy Mask Salesman IS an inspiration for specimen 6 and so I decided to check on HMS just for funsies. Dare I say I did get into Zelda like 2 days after lolololol
Right now, I LOVE HMS sm, I relate to him a lot and Plus I really think he´s cool. I really like Zelda in general but HMS especially has a special place in my heart ᢉ𐭩