Vault Boy serves as a mascot for the “Fallout” games, and he is found everywhere, both as collectible figures scattered across the wasteland, but also as the player’s guide, providing visual representation for virtually all the stats, skills, and conditions in the game.
Vault Boy is part of the signature humor of the “Fallout” games, which is dark and full of grim imagery — yet still has a smiling blond boy giving a thumbs up as a mascot, trying to convince you that everything will be fine even as you’re facing devilish mutated monsters.
In episode 4, we learn that Walton Goggins’ character, Cooper Howard was a famous actor in pre-war times who was hired to do commercials for Vault-Tec. It was Cooper’s idea to do a thumbs-up during a photoshoot, and eventually, his image turned into Vault Boy. Just like the mascot works as an ironic figure in the games, it serves a similar tragic function in the “Fallout” show. Howard seems to have been a big Hollywood star, yet we know he ended up a washed-up actor working at birthday parties, asked to do the thumbs-up pose as a joke by drunk dads right before the nukes dropped and killed his entire family.
Having Howard’s tragedy morph into a smiling mascot is horrible, but totally in line with the “Fallout” games. Adding insult to injury is the fact that Vault-Tec eventually changed Howard’s hair to blond, as the company is notorious for their nefarious experimentations. Having them also be a bunch of supremacists and racists makes perfect sense. But hey! Thumbs up for Vault Boy!
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