Wait, hold on.
In that Wii Mario game players could “bubble themselves” to avoid death. And then shake their controller to bring their bubble closer to an active player, who could pop the bubble and turn the “bubbled” player back into an active player. And if all players were “bubbled” then you’d go back to the world selection screen without any player losing a life - you’d only lose any powerups you had.
So is this the correct source for the terminology, or did nobody using it actually play the game, or???