L.A. broadcasting fixture Gary Franklin died at 79, at home in Chatsworth. He first became known as a street reporter on KFWB, ending his reports with a signature sign-off "Car 98, out." He also reviewed movies for the all-news station, rating them 1 to 10 on the "Franklin scale." In 1981 he replaced David Sheehan as the entertainment critic at Channel 2, then moved five years later to Channel 7 and stayed there until 1991. He did a stint at Channel 13 after that. His style was, shall we say, individual. "Bobbing his bald, conical head vigorously, he rates films with the arch, over-enunciated manner of a schoolmarm lecturing a sixth-grade science class," the Times' Patrick Goldstein wrote in 1983. LAT