The Learning To Be Good stories are intended to teach and reinforce positive relationships and help develop the living skills children need to grow into responsible adults. The Magic Lamp is a story about Greed. McWhiskers buys an old brass vase from a flea market, which might be Alladin's Lamp. His friends, KaWally, Tux, PJ, Puddles, and greedy Bru, offer him increasing amounts of cheese to buy the vase, convinced it's magical. Despite McWhiskers' warnings that it's just a vase, Bru eventually buys it for 100 pounds of cheese. Bru eagerly rubs it, expecting a genie to appear, but nothing happens. The story ends with Bru still rubbing the vase, waiting for magic that never comes, leaving the true value of the vase a mystery.
