1965's WHY IS THERE AIR? is part of the classic string of comedy albums which helped make Bill Cosby's name in the mid-'60s. Cosby first came to national prominence as the co-star of the TV series I SPY. However, he was first and foremost a sharp, clever nightclub comedian, spinning stories based on his Philadelphia childhood and adolescence into comedy considerably more clever and occasionally more acerbic than people who know him from his '80s and '90s TV work might expect.
The highlights of this album include the schooldays remembrances of "Kindergarten," "Personal Hygiene," and "Shop," but the final track, the eight-minute "Hofstra," is a Cosby classic. Painting vivid word pictures of a college football team's humiliating defeat, Cosby delivers one of his all-time classics, up there with "Noah" and "200 M.P.H."