Mr. Whitekeys

Mr. Whitekeys died on 19 October 2026, aged 79. His wife, Judith, confirmed his death that Monday afternoon, and KTUU, the Anchorage station on which he had delivered satirical commentary for years, reported it the same evening. No cause of death has been made public, and funeral or memorial arrangements had not been announced at the time of first reporting.

Friends wrote on his official Facebook page, Mr. Whitekeys presents: The Whalefat Follies, that they would leave readers with what he said at the end of every show: live a life filled with peace, love and Spam; do something to make the world a better place; and be sure to tip your waitress.

Mr. Whitekeys was born Doug Hagar in 1947. He spent his early years living in South Dakota, Iowa and Arizona, and graduated from Duke University in North Carolina.

In 1970 he travelled to Alaska with a friend, the move that shaped the rest of his life. He began, in the words later used on a University of Alaska Anchorage biography quoted by KTUU, by playing piano in sleazy bars.

His first steady work in Alaska was as a bar band musician, in particular for Mike Gordon at his newly opened Spenard establishment, Chilkoot Charlie's. Whitekeys coined what became the saloon's famous slogan, "We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you." When Gordon tried to expand into Girdwood and Fairbanks in the mid 1970s, Whitekeys went to Fairbanks, where he played in the Two Street bars during the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and the boom that came with it.

After playing throughout Alaska, and a short stint in the Ballard neighbourhood of Seattle, he opened his own nightclub, the Fly By Night Club, on 31 July 1980. Its first home was a historic building on the eastern shore of Lake Spenard, once the Idle Hour Supper Club, which was demolished in 1984 to make way for a hotel. He moved the club further up Spenard Road, a block north of the Spenard post office, and advertised it with the motto "Going out of business regularly in the same location for over 30 years."

The club's attractions were a food menu built heavily on Spam dishes and its original shows: Springtime in Spenard, the Freeze-Up Follies, Christmas in Spenard and the Whale Fat Follies. The Whale Fat Follies ran from June to September, was aimed largely at tourists and was advertised as "the Alaskan show The Department Of Tourism does NOT want you to see," while the off season shows were more topical and played to locals. KTUU recalled that politicians and well known Alaskans were regularly skewered in his performances. The club was celebrated as a mecca for "Spam, Booze, Rhythm, and Blues."

The Fly By Night Club closed on 9 September 2006, when Whitekeys sold it to the nightclub owner Allen Choy and his partner Jeff Matosky, and they reopened it as Players House of Rock. Whitekeys went on performing at private events and professional conferences, and between 2011 and 2019 he revived the Whale Fat Follies, first at a bar called Taproot and later at the Hard Rock Cafe in Anchorage.

He was also a writer and broadcaster. His work appeared in an Anchorage Daily News column, in Mr. Whitekeys' Alaska Bizarre, a print version of the Whale Fat Follies, in humorous contributions to The Alaska Almanac, in a monthly column in Alaska magazine and in weekly satirical commentary on the newscasts of KTUU television. He made the DVD Alaska: The First 10,000 Years in 2008.

As a recording artist he released music from 1972, mostly as Mr. Whitekeys and the Fabulous Spamtones, including the albums The Whale Fat Follies! and It's Not Easy Bein' Sleazy, with songs such as Viva Spenard, The Moose Nugget Blues and Don't Let Me Go To Costco. His song Martha Goes Camping appeared on Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes 9 in 2001, and his 2004 single "The Liar Sleeps Tonight," released under a satirical duo name, became popular that year on the Dr. Demento show. He also recorded The Bluesaholics with Kenny Blackwell.

Whitekeys was married to Judith, who confirmed his death. Away from the stage he was a dedicated ornithologist and served as president of the Anchorage Audubon Society.

In 2024 he published The Voyage of The Alaska Union, a book about a nineteenth century Alaskan gold rush expedition.

Thanks to his flamboyant public persona and his humour, Mr. Whitekeys figures prominently in the modern history and folklore of Spenard, the Anchorage neighbourhood whose eccentric reputation he helped to build. For 26 years the Fly By Night Club was a fixture of Anchorage nightlife, and the Whale Fat Follies introduced generations of summer visitors to an irreverent, home grown view of Alaska.

His slogan for Chilkoot Charlie's outlived his time there, his columns and television commentaries made him a familiar voice across the state, and his closing line about peace, love and Spam became the words his friends chose to remember him by.