WWJ -- Longtime "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek announced on Wednesday he has been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
In a video posted online, Trebek says he is one of 50,000 Americans diagnosed with the disease annually and he intends to fight it, with the help of friends, family and viewers.
He even tried to keep things lighthearted, quipping "I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease. Truth told, I have to. Because under the terms of my contract, I have to host Jeopardy! for three more years."
A Lansing man who once competed on "Jeopardy!" says Trebek is just like you would imagine him to be in person as he is on TV.
"He is friendly, a little distant, a little aloof," Ottinger told WWJ's Brooke Allen."He is there to do a job and he wants everyone to be happy. You don’t get to know him when you’re on the show, but you get to realize what you see on television is what you get. That’s what he’s really like.”
Ottinger, the telecommunications director of Okemos Public Schools, appeared on Jeopardy! in 2004 and served as a game show host himself. He hosted QuizBusters on WKAR TV, the public media station from Michigan State University, for 29 years.
Ottinger's run on "Jeopardy!" was short lived, as he lost to Ken Jennings, who holds the record for the show's longest winning streak ever. Jennings won 74 consecutive games in 2004.
Ottinger says any shows that have run for as long a time as "Jeopardy!" has, fall into two camps.
"Certain shows, say, “Saturday Night Live” or “Meet the Press,” go through a recurring group of people that continue to turn in and out and you don’t get the closeness to any one individual,” Ottinger said.
“Then there are shows like 'Jeopardy!' Even though Alex Trebek was not the original host of ‘Jeopardy!’ there are generations of people who only think of him with that show," he said. "And you think of people like David Letterman or Johnny Carson or Bob Barker, who did the same job for such a long time that we feel like they’re a member of the family.”
Ottinger says if it turns out that Trebek has to leave the show sooner than expected, many Americans who watch the show would feel a sense of loss.
"And then in this situation, it’s so much more painful because of the reason," he said.