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")

Hi Garry,

I've been meaning to reply to your post for some time, because I'm fascinated by memes too!

I've posted further up the forum (so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle).... My post is here

http://www.sowpub.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl?read=11861

Thanks for a fascinating topic and post. :)

- Dien