The Schlesinger/WB cartoons enter their third year. Hooray for Bosko and random one-shots! Once again, Hugh Harman directed the former, with Rudolf Ising responsible for the latter.

Bosko at the Zoo
The title says it all, and Honey is there too. At first, there's some annoying "la la la" singing from the duo and cutesy scenes with the animals, but thankfully we get some excitement later on with Bosko and some of the animals in a chase.
7.5

Pagan Moon
A Hawaiian boy and girl perform a song and dance. However, the boy keeps losing his guitar, eventually ending up underwater. The pace picks up nicely – after a slow start, we get some chase action.
8

Battling Bosko
Boxer Bosko fights the much bigger champion Gas House Harry while Honey and other fans root for him. This was a short I was looking forward to, but I think the theme could have made for a much more interesting cartoon. Especially the ending is disappointing and a bit abrupt.
7

Freddy the Freshman
Freddy arrives at a college party where everyone sings a song praising him. Then they all participate in a chaotic football game. The latter part is better, very fast-paced and cartoonish, I can definitely see some of the same spirit as in the later sports-themed shorts.
8

Big-Hearted Bosko
Bosko and his dog Bruno are skating and playing in the snow when they find an abandoned baby. They take him home and try to entertain him, but he just keeps crying. This was essentially the opposite of "Battling Bosko" – I expected this to be an annoying cartoon, but there are some fun moments. The unusually anthropomorphic Bruno is the star here.
8

Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee
The generation gap in an Indian tribe – the adults sing about how much they hate the popular crooners of the time, while the kids sing the same song with lyrics praising them. The kids also have to save three little birds from a fire. A fairly typical cartoon of the time with the first half dedicated to singing and the second to the conflict.
7.5

Bosko's Party
It's Honey's birthday, and Bosko and friends are having a party. Wilbur (thankfully much less annoying than in his first cartoon) gets stuck under a flower pot and tries to get out. The basic cartoon antics of the day with some singing, of course!
7.5

Goopy Geer
Goopy Geer, a dog who's the new recurring character in the Merrie Melodies, plays the piano in a restaurant. There are also some food-related gags and things coming to life. The jaunty music is the best thing here, otherwise I'm expecting a little more from these cartoons by now. The reused scenes from the much better "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!" feel a bit lazy, too.
7

Bosko and Bruno
The titular characters run away from trains and chase a chicken. The train scenes are again very derivative of some earlier cartoons, to the point of reusing animation. On a positive note, it's not as repetitive in itself as "Box Car Blues" (one of the sources for its scenes).
7

It's Got Me Again!
A bunch of mice dance to a record, play instruments and have fun until the cat arrives. The first of many times the studio got an Oscar nomination for best short cartoon, but this lost to Disney's "Flowers and Trees". The short really picks up after the cat appears, but I must say it lost to a more memorable cartoon.
8

Moonlight for Two
Goopy Geer and his girlfriend go to a barn dance. A fight ensues when a villain shows up and tries to kiss her. Like the previous Goopy short, the focus is on music, but the fight at the end is a highlight.
8

Bosko's Dog Race
Bosko enters Bruno in a dog race, but he seems to be more interested in chasing squirrels. Definitely one of the most entertaining Bosko shorts so far – the faster pace and comedy helps!
8.5

The Queen Was in the Parlor
The third and last Goopy Geer cartoon before we go back to one-shots. He is a court jester, trying to entertain the king. He also has to fight a bad guy who's trying to take the princess (the girl dog from the previous Goopy cartoons) away.
8

Bosko at the Beach
Bosko is selling hot dogs at the beach and meets Honey. They have fun... playing music, of course! Bruno and Wilbur keep either getting in trouble themselves or causing trouble for our heroes. Slow at the start, but I think the end part makes it one of Bosko's best, and this is also the first time we hear the very catchy "Ain't We Got Fun"!
8.5

I Love a Parade
A circus barker introduces various acts, essentially connecting otherwise separate gags. There are some imaginative jokes like a cleaner's reaction to the title song, but at times, this reminds me of the very first entries in the series, like the physics in the scene of the "rubber man".
7

Bosko's Store
Bosko is working in his store, but a dog, a mouse and Wilbur (back to being a nuisance) keep giving him trouble. An entertaining short despite a certain annoying character and an unsatisfying ending.
8

Bosko the Lumberjack
Bosko has to save Honey from a fellow lumberjack who kidnaps her. This is quite similar to many earlier entries in the series (even Bosko chopping down trees was done before in "The Tree's Knees"), but still fun and better than most of the early ones.
7.5

You're Too Careless with Your Kisses!
Annoyed at her husband's (the second character in the series named Wilbur!) drunkenness, a female bee flies out to do his work. But a storm strikes, leaving her to seek shelter in a creepy spider's house. The other bugs have to save her. Another good one, I especially like the imaginative use of the bug theme – alcohol being spiked honey, the imaginative use of objects as weapons...
8

Ride Him, Bosko!
Cowboy Bosko goes to the Western town of Red Gulch. He has to save Honey and stop a gang of robbers. This is my favorite Bosko so far – while the plot isn't the strongest, there are gags all the way through, and the ending is certainly the most memorable and surprising in the series so far!
9

Trivia: "Ride Him, Bosko!" is the earliest Warner Bros. cartoon not to be in the public domain, as either WB or United Artists (who used to own the early Merrie Melodies) failed to renew the copyrights of all the earlier ones at some point. This also happened with many of the later shorts, including some from the 40s.

I Wish I Had Wings
Scenes at a henhouse, such as chicks chasing worms and a rooster waiting for eggs to hatch. The main focus is on a hungry chick who wants to get to the garden behind a fence and wishes he had wings (one of the best ways so far to link the mandatory song to the plot). Cute animation with some entertaining scenes, and the hungry chick is surprisingly fun for a kid character.
8

Bosko the Drawback
Another football-themed cartoon, this time with Bosko. There's an overly long massage scene that's not particularly funny, and gags and animation are lazily recycled from the previous football cartoon "Freddy the Freshman" and also some others. From the strongest to the weakest Bosko cartoon with just one cartoon in between – talk about variety!
6

He gets a bunch of trash dumped on him, but he's still happy... truly an inspiration.

A Great Big Bunch of You
The most purely musical Merrie Melodies in a while... A mannequin ends up in the dump. He performs the title song with various objects joining him. As you can expect, not much happens in the sense of a plot, but sometimes a feel-good atmosphere and a fun and jazzy song are enough to make a short very enjoyable! The ceaselessly happy main character must have done quite a bit to cheer up the Depression-era audience.
9

Bosko and Honey
An originally unreleased cartoon. Honey is trying to teach Wilbur to play the violin, disastrously. She and Bosko go on a date, but things don't go the way they expected. Harman and Ising have often reused animation and gags in these cartoons, as I've already mentioned a lot of times, but with this cartoon, it's taken to a new extent – many scenes are either partially or entirely recycled, even from the very first Looney Tune! Ignoring this, it's a rather basic Bosko cartoon.
7

Bosko's Dizzy Date
Apparently the reused footage in "Bosko and Honey" was so blatant that it was rejected by either Schlesinger or WB and ended up being reworked into this cartoon, having the same basic plot but replacing many of the recycled scenes with new ones. In some cases, the difference is small (Bosko and Honey's phone call), in others more significant (Wilbur pouring water on Bosko is done differently, for example). There are added gags that make the cartoon flow much better – really shows how much of a difference small changes can make!
8

Three's a Crowd
Characters from books (both fictional and historical) come to life at night – this will be a common theme in the 30s cartoons. They sing and dance until everyone has to save Alice from Mr. Hyde. This is again a theme that's been seen many times, but it's still an adequately entertaining cartoon. The most surprising thing about this short is that some of the human characters are drawn unusually realistically, possibly rotoscoped.
7.5

Bosko's Woodland Daze
Bosko is playing hide and seek with Bruno in the forest. He falls asleep and has a dream featuring gnomes, and an evil giant chasing him. Quite a cutesy cartoon, reminds me of some of the earlier Boskos.
7

Besides his cartoons, producer Leon Schlesinger released Western movies, some of them featuring John Wayne before he became famous (again showing how great Schlesinger was at finding talent). As they're live-action films, I won't be covering them here, but one of them did have an animated title sequence.

Haunted Gold
Ghostly bats fly towards the screen while the credits appear. Not much animation here (and it lasts less than a minute anyway), but it must have set the tone for the film nicely! The same animation was also used for the film's trailer, along with additional animations of eyes and moving text.

Bosko had some of his best cartoons so far this year, as the focus switched more from music to comedy (though short singing and dancing sequences were still in many of the cartoons). His cartoons sometimes even eclipsed the Merrie Melodies in quality. As for the latter, thanks to them, I'm starting to have an all-new appreciation for the music of this era. The following year will be an eventful one...