Written by Robert Scucci | Published
For convenience and continuity, each sitcom somehow has a soundproof kitchen that appears to be somewhere else where guests can't hear conversations in the open floor plan. On a technical level, this trope makes sense because setting up an entirely new set for secret conversations to happen would be a difficult test. But how much disbelief should we suspend when sitcom characters like Frasier Crane talk so much about their hearing-impaired guests?
Evidence Kitchens Feel Magical
The only sitcom in recent memory that acknowledged this trope during its run was How I Met Your Mother. In the episode “Okay Awesome,” Marshall and Lily are devastated after inviting their boring new friends, Claire and Austin, to a wine tasting party. When Marshall walks into the kitchen to air his grievances about Claire and Austin, it turns out that Claire is standing behind him, hearing every word. It's a rare example of a sitcom that recognizes that an open-minded apartment doesn't magically become a private confessional just because someone fell into the kitchen.
However, it is suggested that if Claire had not breached the kitchen limit, Marshall would have gotten away with his mean-spirited jabs about Claire and Austin's 30-year mortgage and ultrasound pictures. Given how the episode ends with Marshall and Lily climbing out of their bathroom window to meet the rest of the gang at the club, “Okay Awesome” didn't need to rely on the trope of the soundproof sitcom kitchen because it's not like they were trying to save face in the first place. If anything, having Claire overhear the entire conversation in the living room would have better sold the joke while further poking fun at one of the old unwritten rules of television.
Playing Fun At The Concept
From this point forward, we won't be seeing Claire or Austin in any significant capacity again, so who cares if their feelings are hurt by some serious comment when their hosts rudely abandon their party to meet the gang anyway? Their friendship was doomed no matter what, which made the need for a secret magical kitchen feel even more unnecessary.
I am willing to forgive How I Met Your Mother because at least it acknowledges the absurdity of the trope instead of pretending it doesn't happen. Most sitcoms just expect us to accept that crossing an invisible line into the kitchen somehow creates a cone of silence, but “Okay It's Amazing” briefly draws attention to how ridiculous that idea is before going back to business as usual.
Worst Examples Can Be Found in Frasier
But I can't say the same thing about it Frasierwhere Frasier Crane used to have important conversations in his kitchen in his booming baritone voice while his guests sat less than 10 feet away in the living room. One of the best examples of the sitcom kitchen trope without sound comes in “Daphne Dates a Niles Doppelganger,” where Niles has a complete meltdown due to his reluctance to tell Daphne how he feels, only to see her start dating a man who's almost a double.
Although the episode suggests that conversations taking place in Frasier's kitchen cannot be heard elsewhere in the apartment, it completely undermines that logic after a while. As Frasier meets his guests in the living room, he soon hears Niles fall and smash one of his antique coffee mugs in the kitchen (Catherine of Aragon!), proving that sound can travel freely between the two rooms. If Niles breaks a coffee mug all over the place, there's no reason a frustrated Frasier crying at full volume shouldn't be.
A Rare Exception
If sitcoms are going to use this trope, they should at least commit to it. The kitchen can not only be a soundproof place when the plot requires a private conversation, only for the sounds to travel freely across the exact same distance seconds later. Either the sound gets through the open floor plan or it doesn't.
This is also why the trope feels so out of place in sitcoms Seinfeld again It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Those plays thrive when the characters openly conspire against each other, insult each other to their faces, or make no effort to hide their selfish intentions in the first place. When everyone's already saying the silent part out loud, there's very little need for an eerily quiet kitchen to keep the story moving.
