Context

This line is from the song "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo," written by Al Hoffman, Mack David, and Jerry Livingston, from the movie Cinderella (1950).

This song comes up during the scene where Cinderella is at her lowest point. She's just been told she can't go to ball after all because her stepsisters have conveniently destroyed her dress. It's hard out there for an orphan. Suddenly her Fairy Godmother appears and offers to make everything all better with just a little bit of magic. It's all very fun and, well, enchanting.

The lyrics on "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" are pretty much totally nonsense. Fairy Godmother is spewing out a bunch of spells that are clearly doing stuff but don't actually mean anything. (As opposed to the spells in say, the Harry Potter books, which have roots in Latin words, so they are understandable magic spells.) You'll find lots of songs like this in Disney movies, like "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" or "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", that are super fun to sing but don't really mean all that much.

Hey, as long as Cinderella gets her prince, we're happy.

Where you've heard it

The lyrics of this song are a bit of a shorthand for magic. You might hear someone break it out as a bit of a funny little spell.

Additional Notable References:

• In Shrek, Fiona's own fairy godmother sings her a song just like this, but Fiona doesn't appreciate it quite as much.
• On South Park, Mr. Garrison mathematically analyzes this song and finds out it's more complicated than we all think.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Making magic happen is fun, not pretentious. Feel free to enchant away, Fairy Godmother!