| Director | Michael Ritchie |
|---|---|
| Genre | comedy film, family film, fantasy film |
| Runtime | 89 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $28 million |
| Box office | $8.3 million |
Carriage driver Oliver Greening aspires to perform on Broadway and, despite an outstanding audition for a new musical based on A Tale of Two Cities, he loses out to the seasoned Tony Sable, who is considered more bankable than the unknown Oliver.
Later that night, Anabel, Oliver's young daughter, does not convince her brother Charlie that fairy godmothers exist, and after they fall asleep, she awakens to find Murray, a male fairy godmother, in her room. Murray, who is treated with disdain for being a man in a female-dominated profession, agrees to grant Anabel's wish that her father get the part so that her family will not have to move to Nebraska, hoping that by doing so he will be taken seriously.
Hortence, the head fairy godmother, oversees the North American Fairy Godmothers Association (NAFGA)'s annual meeting. All participants must turn in their wands so that no trouble occurs. The evil witch Claudia, who was banished from the NAFGA for her selfish use of magic, tricks Hortence's receptionist with an apple that puts her to sleep before casting a spell that makes Hortence paper-thin and lodges bricks in her mouth to stop her from speaking. She then steals all the collected wands; Murray arrives late to the conference and does not check his wand in, making it the only one she does not have.
Seeing Murray accidentally left his wand behind in his rush to make it to the conference, Anabel plans to return it to him. However, Charlie breaks it. Anabel glues the broken pieces together and gives it to Murray, only to wind up in Nebraska after the former botches a spell for instantaneous travel. Duane, an angry local threatens them, and Murray tries to turn him into a tiny rabbit but instead transforms him into a giant rabbi. Before the giant stomps on them, Murray casts the travel spell again, and they wind up in the Central Park zoo just as Oliver arrives in his carriage with Charlie.
Anabel begs Murray to grant her wish, but he accidentally turns Oliver into a statue. To fix it, the three go to ask Hortence for help, only to find her still under Claudia's curse. While Murray fixes his wand with Charlie's help, Hortence reveals that, in keeping with the rules governing fairy godmothers, Anabel must break Murray's spell by midnight, or Oliver will be a statue forever. Claudia, meanwhile, realizes that Hortense had secretly given her wand to Murray so as to keep her from regaining her full power.
At the theatre, Anabel asks Murray to try sabotaging Sable's audition. First, he tries to make it rain on the stage, but the weak downpour is dismissed as a simple technical problem, and the audition continues. Then she asks him to give Sable a "frog in his throat" to impair his singing. Murray takes this literally, and frogs start hopping out of Sable's mouth, shocking everyone.
Nevertheless, Sable is given the part as the director Lord Richard refuses to wait for Oliver and wants to get the show into production. Boots, Claudia's dog-turned-human servant, finds them. Murray and Anabel trick Boots into taking them to Claudia by begging her not to. Claudia demands that they hand over her wand, and when they refuse, she resorts to torture by enchanting them to dance for her amusement until they are worn out.
Anabel keeps Claudia distracted while Charlie attempts to give Murray the wand, but Boots manages to grab it. Murray then plays on Boots being unhappy with the way Claudia treats her to convince her that he should have the wand instead of her mistress. Boots jumps into Murray's arms and he takes the wand. Claudia casts a spell intending to target them both, but the spell accidentally causes her to get zapped into the mirror, which she accidentally shatters after desperatly trying to escape by banging on it, keeping her imprisoned for eternity.
Murray, Charlie, and Anabel return to Central Park and restore Oliver just in time for him to be given the part of Sable's understudy. To grant Anabel's wish, Murray appears backstage and causes Sable to slip on a bucket and twist his ankle. The resulting temper tantrum gets him fired and Oliver, his understudy, takes over. Charlie and Anabel watch the show with Murray and the other fairy godmothers, including Hortence, who is shown to be freed from Claudia's spell. The movie ends with Murray taking Boots for a walk through New York City at night.