The TV show Fallout gives the game’s mascot an origin story that matters

Prime Videos Fallout TV series take a smart approach to the canon of the video game franchise. Rather than trying to adapt a particular game or storyline, it uses the Fallout games as a fictional and aesthetic baseline. But the series plants a few narrative flags, making decisions about who started the franchise’s nuclear war and giving one of its most iconic images, the character known as Vault Boy, a real origin story.

Vault Boy is the smiling cartoon character seen on Vault-Tec posters, the Pip Boy computer interface, and other fictional products in the Fallout world. In the Fallout games, he is a mascot used to illustrate players’ advantages and abilities, and to reinforce the fun-loving, can-do attitude of Vault Dwellers. Vault Boy was originally inspired by Milburn Pennybags (aka Mr. Monopoly), the board game mascot Monopolyand cartoon characters from the 1950s. Vault Boy has been in Fallout since the beginning.

(Ed. remark: The rest of this post contains spoilers for Fallout season 1.)

The Fallout TV Series shows that the Vault Boy icon is based on one of the show’s main characters, Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), who later transforms into The Ghoul. Before that tragic turn, Howard is a Hollywood actor who stars in westerns, and he takes a gig promoting the vaults of Vault-Tec. In episode 3 of the Fallout In the show, Howard is shown wearing Vault Boy’s signature blue and yellow jumpsuit and then poses for a Vault-Tec advertisement. He flashes a big smile and gives a thumbs up, capturing the character’s appearance and favorite pose.

Howard’s star power in Hollywood begins to lose its luster soon after. His colleagues shun him because he works as a “pitchman for the end of the world,” and studios begin cutting him from projects. In the end credits of Episode 3, we see what ultimately happens to the actor’s role as spokesperson for Vault-Tec: a billboard advertising safes that once featured a photo of Howard from that shoot is partially stickered, with the cartoon Vault Boy replacing Howard’s likeness. . It remains a familiar image, but now distinctive, with blond hair and a younger appearance.

Flash back to the first episode of Fallout, and we realize why Howard is limited to working children’s birthday parties, and why he refuses to give his signature thumbs up when posing for photos at an event. “Given the current situation,” Howard tells the birthday boy’s father, amid growing fears of nuclear war and personal conflict, “I’d rather not do that.”

Image: Primevideo

A little later in that episode, Fallout‘s writers nod to another bit of (unofficial) Vault Boy backstory. Just before the bombs drop, Howard explains to his daughter Janey that when he was in the Marines, he was told, “If they ever drop a really big bomb, they told us to give you a thumbs up like this.” And when the cloud is smaller than your thumb, you run for the hills.” This is a reference to an enduring Fallout fan theory that Vault Boy performs a similar check with his pose: thumbs up, one eye closed, smiling from a safe distance.

Brian Fargo, former executive producer of the Fallout games, debunked this particular fan theory about Vault Boy in a tweet from 2013, saying that Vault Boy “just has a positive attitude.” But the TV show’s producers seem to be leaning on the “rule of thumb” hypothesis, one of many cleverly crafted Easter eggs aimed squarely at the hardcore Fallout audience. It’s an example of how longtime fans can make themselves part of the canon.

All eight episodes of Fallout season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.