:lol: :lol: I got that same email a couple of weeks ago. After I got up off the floor and caught my breath, I started wondering if anybody really knew wrote the Hokey Pokey?. . . was their and truth to the email? . . . did they really have trouble getting him in his casket? So, I did a little research. You know what they say, the truth is stranger than fiction . . .
So, just to set the record straight, a man named Larry LaPrise did, in fact, write the "Hokey Pokey." So far, so good. The story is based on a real person.
But, I found out that he wrote it in the 1940s, not the 1960s. He wrote the tune for the Sun Valley, Idaho, ski crowd in the late 1940s, but it took a recording by big band leader Ray Anthony to make the Hokey Pokey a nationwide phenomenon. (It appeared on the B side of the "Bunny Hop" single.) However, he didn't receive any royalties from it until the rights for the song was purchased by country music legend Roy Accuff (more correctly, his publishing company, Accuff-Rose). That happened in the 1960s. So he didn't write it in the 60's but he didn't make any money on it till then . . . so, again, the story does have some basis in fact.
Next, I found out that he died in Boise, Idaho in early April. But he was not 93 when he died, he was 83. Again though, the story did have a basis in the truth 'cause he died in early April 1996, not 2006 . . . so his birthday WAS 93 years ago.
I also discovered that in his later years, LaPrise worked in the post office in Ketchum, Idaho. Children often wrote him notes addressed to "The Hokey Pokey Man." As for the trouble putting him in his casket . . . not true. It was his right leg they put in first. :lol:
The Hokey Pokey Man
