So I have a couple crappy tvs of the same model. One in my room, one in the living room. Sounds that come from offscreen don't seem to play on either tv, starting at roughly the same time, as if our cable company suddenly changed audio input requiring more channels. Or something to that effect. I don't really know anything about sound systems, cable, and whatnot. I'm going to check tomorrow to see if the offscreen sound is missing on other model tvs in our house, and see if it's a house-wide thing or not, but in case anyone has any similar experience, I'd love to hear it.
I know sound should come from the speakers, because I've seen the shows multiple times before. Damn Family Guy and American Dad reruns. The scene is usually something like a couple characters onscreen looking offscreen, towards the character whose voice cannot be heard. Both TVs are fed from the same cable, except they're about 75 feet or so away from each other, and for one of the TVs, the cable is sent through a cable box first, meaning standard/digital cable doesn't affect it.