Someone just sent this to me (and a bunch of others):

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world today, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote “The Hokey Pokey” died peacefully at the age of 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him in the coffin. They put his left leg in…. and then the trouble started.

My first thought was “I thought he died a while ago…”, so off to Google I went, and found out (after coming across a lot of sites with the same joke quoted above), that yes, indeed, Larry LaPrise died in 1996, not last week.

I also found out that Larry may not have created the Hokey Pokey; see The Mystery Lives On. This article also quotes Larry:

“The Hokey Pokey’ is like a square dance, really,” LaPrise said in 1992. “You turn around. You shake it all about. Everyone is in a circle, and it gets them all involved.”

I think the person who sent the email is involved in traditional square dancing (at least, it’s mostly traditional callers in the list of addresses). And the Hokey Pokey is more like a traditional square; it’s the same every time it’s done…at least, unless you find an instrumental version and get a highly-trained professional caller to decide the order that the body parts go in and out (don’t go there…).