The Fallout TV Show Gives The Franchise's Vault Boy Mascot A Wild Origin Story
A problem with adapting a popular work of fiction to a different medium is the desire to encompass everything, even what isn't in the source material. Sometimes this translates into good choices that take advantage of the new format and hindsight, like "One Piece" giving Garp a bigger role much earlier than the manga. Of course, this can also lead to unnecessary additions like showing the Air Nomad genocide in the live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender."
Thankfully, the "Fallout" TV show is more like the former than the latter. This is a show that takes what makes the video games so special and popular — namely, its world — and tells an original story within it. That allows the show to be canon to the "Fallout" universe without stepping on the toes of any one game or retconning player choices. There are plenty of references to the games and characters that share elements with characters from the games, but no exact replicas. It is the best-case scenario for an adaptation like this, as the show doesn't take away from the games but instead justifies its existence by simply being a new story in this world, one with exquisite production design, visual storytelling, and world-building.
One cool thing the live-action "Fallout" does is to show us the world as it was before the nuclear holocaust through the character of The Ghoul. Walton Goggins plays a hot mutant bounty hunter who is hundreds of years old. He also used to be an actor, and a spokesperson for none other than Vault-Tec, the company behind the vaults and the Vault Boy mascot that has become synonymous with the games. As it turns out, Vault Boy has a wild origin story.
Cruel irony
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!