One of the (many) epic copyright battles regarding our folk repertoire. According to AMG:
Roland Lawrence LaPrise was born 11/11/1912 in Detroit. He served in France during WW II as an Army musician. His "The Hokey Pokey" was first recorded by his Ram Trio in 1949 and copyright 1950. It was based on a French-Canadian song he learned from his father. He was, of course, sued by Bob Degen, who owned the copyright from 1944 of his own "The Hokey Pokey Dance"; they settled out of court and split the royalties.
Some GIs were confirmed to joining an English dance craze of the highly similar "Okey Cokey" during World War II; what was more, the Shakers of Kentucky - which normally banned dancing - were also documented to have sung a similar song called "The Hinkum Booby." Bruce Olson's "Scarce Songs 2" gives it as "Hinkumbooby" from Robert Chambers' 'Popular Rhymes of Scotland' (1847) and perhaps back to a 17th century dance.
The music world lost the legendary La Prise on April 4, 1996. It was especially hard for the family, as they found it difficult to keep him in the casket. They'd put the left foot in--well, you know the rest.
(Earliest web report I've found so far is October 2001 for that last paragraph – the rest is from AMG)