Dawn Wells is best known for playing Mary Ann Summers, the girl next door among the “Gilligan’s Island” castaways. Her final acting role, decades after the classic sitcom was off the air, was something quite different. Wells voiced a ghost dentist named Gumbalina Toothington in “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants.”
The cartoon, which premiered on Netflix in 2018 but is now streaming on Peacock, is a spin-off of a 2017 DreamWorks Animation movie based on the popular children’s book series by Dav Pilkey. More than 90 million copies of the books have sold worldwide.
Gumablina appears in a Season 3 episode that hit the streaming service in July 2019. “The Ghastly Danger of the Ghost Dentist” sees Wells’ spectral tooth doctor haunt protagonists George and Harold after they tell a ghost story about her while camping with their friends. It turns out that Gumbalina isn’t actually mean or scary, she’s just really, really serious about oral hygiene, and when the boys allow her to clean everyone’s teeth — Captain Underpants included — she leaves them alone.
The role was the final performance of Wells’ before she died at 82 in 2020 due to complications from COVID-19. With her death, Ginger Grant actress Tina Louise became the last surviving member of the “Gilligan’s Island” cast.
Captain Underpants was one of Dawn Wells’ only voice acting roles
Dawn Wells was 80 years old when she played Gumbalina Toothington in “The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants,” and despite a long career with plenty of credits well beyond “Gilligan’s Island,” the part was somewhat unusual for her — and not just because she was playing a ghost dentist.
“Captain Underpants” was only Wells’ second-ever voice acting credit. Her first? Reprising her role as Mary Ann Summers in the CBS Saturday morning cartoon series “Gilligan’s Planet,” which ran for one season in 1982. Notably, Tina Louise was the only member of the live-action cast not to return for the cartoon, so Wells pulled double duty on “Gilligan’s Planet” and voiced Ginger Grant, too.
None of the “Gilligan’s Island” castaways did much voice acting with one very notable exception — the great Jim Backus. In addition to his tenure as Thurston Howell III and many other live-action sitcom roles throughout his career, Backus voiced the comically nearsighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo for decades.
