I bought Dirge with my Christmas money in late December/early January 1985, from a very small toyshop in Petergate, York. It was a decision I never, ever regretted. I had days of fun playing with that toy, from first opening him up when I got home (for some reason I remember the now forgotten Richard O'Sullivan sitcom "Me & My Girl" was on in the background as I applied the stickers) to making bases for my now bolstered Decepticon ranks, to having Dirge transform to jet mode to make bombing raids on Jazz and the Dinobots.
These are the good times, people.
I always liked Dirge's personality from his Tech Specs, too. He was a proto-Sinestro of sorts, a master of handling fear and causing people to panic for seemingly no reason. Of course, the reason was simple; he could 'create' fear from his turbines, turning people into gibbering wrecks for his own amusement and the furtherment of the Decepticon cause.
Not that you'd ever know from any fiction he was in. In both the cartoon and the comics, Dirge has mainly been a generobot, one of the 'coneheads' (a fan-coined term for the second wave of Decepticon jetformers, released in 1985), and therefore, not seemingly interesting enough to get any screen time other than being a thug. A shame. Because his Tech Spec bio was always, and still is, one of the cooler ones.
The toy was always one of my favourites, all of the coneheads were (the others being Thrust and Ramjet). I was never amazingly keen on the original Decepticon jet toys, mainly because they were all the same. The great thing about the coneheads was, that they all had different parts to them, the wings, their guns. Which gave them more personality. Plus, Dirge's wings are GOLDEN. That's amazing.
One day very soon, I shall have all the coneheads, both in their G1 and 'Classic' forms. What a day that shall be, my fine friends. What a day indeed.
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