Tracking the meme

I got sent a death notice for Larry La Prise of "hokey pokey" fame today. You may have seen it yourself. It gave me a laugh, but it also "smelt funny", so I decided to check it out. The earliest reference I found was on Google groups in Feb 2000, then a strong resurgence in mid 2002 when it really started spreading. The truly fascinating thing about this particular meme is that it has so swamped the search engine results I am unable to find out when he did actually die.
Those of you who recognise the name Craig Shergold may understand my fascination with memes.
If you dont know what a meme is, try here:
http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Cultural/Memetics/

If you dont know what the "hokey Pokey" is, you need to have more fun. (AKA "hokey cokey")