Sometimes you just have to wonder. I taped an episode of the old Bonanza"Dangerous Passage" scene that first aired on 5 November 1967, from a TVland re-airing this week, and there wasn't a single closeup of Tina Louise's gagged face in the scene. (Tina Louise would get gagged again on Gilligan's Island, with a cleave gag make from plant fronds, as well as a more common cleave gag on "Police Story." You go, gal!)

Ordinarily, this would be par for the course in terms of mainstream foolishness, but this was the first bitgag ever seen on American TV.*

So you have to figure SOMEBODY gave at least a MOMENT'S thought to the gag, since NO ONE had done one like it before, and it would be more than three DECADES before someone did one again. Almost every prior gag on American TV involved cloth or ropes, yet for this one show, on this one occasion, they used a bit gag. It was exceptional in every sense of the word, and would remain that way for a very long time.

In fact, it would be a different CENTURY before someone did it again on American network television. It would be the 29th of January, 2000, before Fabiana Udenio wore a bit gag on the "Sticks and Stones episode of "Amazon." And she has been the only one since.**

I'm not sure if there's any historical verisimilitude to the whole Indians/bit gag thing, especially since the tribe on Bonanza was clearly Hollywood Indians ... I mean, they can hear a squirrel coughing in the woods three miles away, but they don't NOTICE a bunch of burly white settlers sneaking up on them? Riiiiiight. Plus, being Hollywood Indians, they were probably mostly Jewish -- very characteristic of that tribe.

In any event, I doubt the historical use of bit gags by actual Indians on logical grounds. Either they needed to silence their captives or they didn't. And the thing is, bit gags won't silence a captive. They do almost nothing to control screaming. So I don't think they would have been used. The only reason I can think the director of whomever thought a bit gag would be right would be that it had that Western look so prized by pioneers and Indians in the old days. I mean, wood, leather straps -- it's practically a farm implement as it is.

Pity that line of thinking never caught on.

So why did they put a bit gag on Tina Louise on this single occasion? I have no idea. The Scene Database shows there were plenty of other occasions for women to be gagged by Indians in American TV series, but they always used a cloth cleave gag or a detective gag.

ALSO FROM PAT POWERS

And having used the bitgag, why did they not provide a single closeup of Tina Louise wearing it? You would think that having done something so exceptional that no one would do it again on TV for more than three decades, they'd want to at least SHOW what they'd done, but as you can see from the vidcaps on this page, there's not a closeup to be seen, because if there had been one, I'd have used it. A closeup would have been arresting and dramatic. But it's not in the TVLand version. Maybe there was a closeup in the original series (there weren't nearly as many commercials in an hour back in 1967) but we don't have any confirmation of that.

As it was, it was a VERY brief scene, just half a minute or so of cowboys sneaking into the back of a wigwam to steal the captive. Probably the fact that they used a bit gag was happenstance, but you have to wonder why they did it at all.

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that it just goes to show that SOMEBODY out there had no frickin' idea what they were doing. The only thing that can match Bonanza's bitgag scene for rarity over several decades is Elke Sommer's joyrope (a rope that goes from the waist between the legs up to the back, providing a bit of joy if rubbed against) scene in "Sweet Ecstasy," and THEY at least had the sense to do a closeup of her joyroped torso.

It's a strange mystery of the unknown, and like much of the history of bondage in mainstream media, is likely to remain so. However, I think any unknown actress should be clamoring to be wearing a bitgag in any bondage scene she might participate in. Why? Because they are obviously LUCKY. Think of all the thousands of unknown actresses who have worn cleave gags, over the mouth gags and tape gags. Sure, quite a few celebrities have worn them during their careers, but mostly they were for unknowns.

But the two bitgags to show up in American mainstream TV and movies were worn by Tina Louise, who hit it big in Gilligan's Island, Fabiana Udenio, who has had a long successful career in TV and the movies. What are the odds that in its two measly appearances in mainstream television, the bitgag would hit two such successful actresses? Oh, I think any ambitious TV actress would do well to beg any director who wants her to play a scene gagged, to beg for a bit gag. The odds in the acting field are so great that you need any little bit of luck you can get. And hitting on two successful TV stars in their two TV appearances ... bitgags are luck, man. Just plain lucky.

* To confirm this assertion, I checked out the Scene Database on Brian's Page, which lists over 12,000 bondage scenes in mainstream television shows and movies (it does not include bondage videos or hardcore pornography) which showed no prior bitgag scenes.

** Caveats: we are referring to American network television, bitgags have been worn in English, German, Asian and Brazilian TV series since. There was also a bitgag in the May 2000 episode of the Showtime premium channel TV series "The L Word." And bitgags have appears on a Canadian reality TV show about pony girls, and I'd be VERY surprised of HBO's Real Sex or one of the other premium cable reality shows about sex didn't cover pony girls, which would also mean bit gags. Still, a gap of almost four decades between the Tina Louise bitgag and Fabiana Udenio's.

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