Just when Californians thought the airwaves would be free of those mind-numbing Kars 4 Kids jingles, a court ruled that the company can continue running its ads during the appeals process.
A California appeals court put a temporary hold on a lower-court order that would have required Kars4Kids to pull or significantly change its ads in the state, allowing the commercials to continue airing while the organization appeals the decision, as the California Post reports.
The injunction stems from a lawsuit filed by a California man who donated a vehicle after hearing the charity’s well-known jingle and later learned that much of the organization’s funding supports programs run by Oorah, an Orthodox Jewish outreach organization based in New Jersey, as SFist reported previously. During the trial, Kars4Kids chief operating officer Esti Landau testified that the charity’s primary function is funding Oorah’s programs.
Last month, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled that Kars4Kids’ advertising was misleading because it did not disclose the organization’s religious affiliation or that most beneficiaries were located outside California.
The judge also reportedly found that the ads’ focus on young children could give donors a misleading impression of who the programs primarily serve. Court records showed that roughly 60% of the charity’s revenue goes to Oorah, while another 36% is spent on administration and advertising.
The ruling would have required future television ads to clearly disclose the organization’s religious affiliation, the location of its primary beneficiaries, and whether its programs serve children, families, or both. Kars4Kids was also ordered to pay $250 in restitution to the plaintiff. All proceedings are now paused pending the outcome of the appeal.
For a little comic relief on a Friday afternoon, here’s a great spoof of the Kars 4 Kids jingle, “Trucks for Tykes,” as seen on NBC’s 'Will & Grace' back in 2018 (although the quality of the clip is a bit subpar).
