In 1940, Jones moved to Universal Pictures for two musicals: "The Boys from Syracuse", with the stage score (severely cut) by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and "One Night in the Tropics" with a score by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, was also the screen debut of Abbott and Costello. After these two films, he slipped to leads in several "B" musicals, at Paramount, and Universal, including a reunion with his "A Night At The Opera" co-star Kitty Carlisle in "Larceny with Music" (1943). The same year he made a guest appearance, as himself, in the Olsen and Johnson musical "Crazy House", where he again performed "The Donkey Serenade".