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Chez Ray

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CHILL FACTOR

Prepackaged foods stock the Barones' larder, from the array of cereals atop the fridge ("a tribute to Seinfeld," kids Rosenthal) to the mini ginger ales that Ray favors over bottled water, which was judged too high-end for a single-income family with three kids. "I've gotta keep it real," says Romano. "I had a big fight the first time they wanted me drinking coffee. I said, 'I don't drink coffee.' And they said, 'Well, you have to act now.'" That task is somewhat easier since the barnyard-animal refrigerator magnets have been silenced. They used to moo and cock-a-doodle-doo when anyone leaned against them, potentially ruining takes.

KITCHEN

Compared with mama-in-law Marie's (Doris Roberts) old-fashioned cucina across the street, "it's safe to say Debra's is the nicer kitchen, the one you'd want to spend more time in, but she doesn't really use it well," says Rosenthal, who's turned Debra's lack of cooking skills into one of the show's richest running jokes. Romano's fond of the retro stove: "It's supposed to be chic to have, but that's probably not why we have it."

BEDROOM

"This is done in Early American No Action," cracks Rosenthal about the unromantically adorned bedroom that the perennially frustrated Ray shares with his wife. "It's not a boudoir. It's not like the Sex Capades are going on in there, but show me the married couple where that is happening. I think it's true to life." Romano doesn't expect any change in his character's scoreless streak, either. "We could have a heart-shaped bed, and somehow it still wouldn't help."

LOTION DETECTORS

You can learn a lot about a person from what's beside their bed. For Debra, it's Dermalogica skin cream. "There's a fan club of people who enjoy watching Debra cream herself," jokes Heaton. "There are some men who are just a little too excited by that." Over on Ray's side, "the remote has to be within an arm's length," says Romano. Concludes Rosenthal, "Like in every family, Dad gets the remote, and the wife runs everything else."

HOUSE OF PAIN

"Their living room hasn't changed for 35 to 40 years," Rosenthal says of Ray's parents, whose time capsule of tackiness is right across the street. "There's even a lamp that is the exact one that my parents had in the 1960s in the Bronx." The furnishings, which also include shag carpeting and a rotary phone, "have been around so long that some of them are actually kind of hip now," says Stamps-Yarmer. "I got a letter from somebody who wanted to know where they could get a green refrigerator," she adds. "How do you tell them it's a joke?" True, but it's a gag that's steeped in reality. "When I first saw that set, I thought, C'mon, it's a bit much," says Heaton. "Then when my husband and I were looking at houses, we walked into an exact replica of that living room. So I'm a believer now."