The origin of the Vault Boy 

Funny how vault boy is one of the most badass characters in fallout

Couldn’t have an actor more deserving to be a part of video game history.

Fun fact, if you look closely enough, you can see he’s still wearing that sheriffs outfit

I wonder how long Vault boy was in circulation for before the war, because it seems like it became prolific in a very short time between the photoshoot that spawned him and the great war.

His sheriff character was actually the main character of a serial film (series like James Bond) the precursor to TV series. That’s what made him famous and why he objected that “his character“ wouldn’t just shoot someone in the face. “Why don’t I arrest him, that’s kinda my thing.”

Blue and gold are both my favorite colors too, I'm glad the vault suits were always that

Cooper Howard, the lore around him, and his “afterlife” as the force of nature that is The Ghoul is probably my favorite addition to the lore that the show made. Man gave us a glimpse into pre-war Vault tech’s corruption and scheming, and then basically became a vengeful spirit of the wasteland, apparently showing up every few decades to wreak havoc for his own gain before disappearing again. Can’t wait to see where is arc goes next.

So funny in lore fact that is a real world fact during the 50s and 60s children where taught the thumb tricks in schools, this was also a thing for businesses to hold meetings about proper radiation protection and safety due to the threat of nuclear war with Russia. I love how they took real world ideals and cultures to make such a fleshed out universe

Hot damn! This explains the old Vault/Pip Boy with black hair! It also explains those educational videos with the Vault Boy they did. They killed him in several scenarios if I recall.

I just recently noticed the Ghoul is still wearing that blue and gold cowboy shirt under his raggedy outfit. I guess polyester really does last forever.

I think they 100% made the right choice with Walton goggins to be the face of vault tec & a badass cowboy ghoul

I'd be willing to bet that his sherrif character is meant to be the inspiration behind Victor in New Vegas.

I love him as the bad guy but when he plays bad and good at the same time OMG . HEART THROB

Making that connection in the moment while watching the series is one of the insane highlights of the show

That explains why in the show the ghoul shoots a billboard with vault boy on it

I always thought the thumbs up was from an old nuclear explosion article where if you put your thumb towards the mushroom cloud if the mushroom cloud goes over your thumb you are in danger

It was Infinitely better than i expected.. but i Really hate how the show Immediately insert itself into being absolutely Key to the state of the wasteland. Showing the origin of vault boy, showing why the vault suits are blue and yellow, confirming who actually dropped the first bombs, and wiping out shady sands makes the show the most Pivotal part of nearly every aspect of fallout lore. It would have been great to get a story that was just a good story without having to be the Most Important fallout story that sets up all of the stories that will take place after it.

Im into Fallout 4 about 30 hrs and still havent dropped my Vault suit. It just looks perfect.

Dude, he did such a great job in that role.

I also noticed in one of the episodes he purposely shot the face off the billboard

First: Stephanie is Vault Girl.

oh right this shit is cannon now

I actually think they were controlling coopers movies productions as well (thus the yellow and blue colors in his outfit), vault tech was already around for a few decades at this point and probably areadly had an established identity with logos/colors. They were probably also propagating movies and fired people like his director they mentioned in the movie scene.

Vault boy/girl is measuring a blast to see if they're going to survive, Cooper was just doing a communicative thumbs up at waist level. Very different poses with different meanings.

Now every vault boy I find or see is a reminder that this man is still out there in the waste somewhere….badass

Wow I actually didn't know that

It's also why he shoots the face off the billboard mid season

The song just hits it off the park 🏏🎶

The thumbs up is supposed to be for gaging you distance from the nuke when dropped. Tf is it just a thumbs up for?

That sweet brown sugar just hit different.

Not only his thumbs up, but also his FAVORITE blue and gold. Seems like they wanted to spite him

Oh damn I hadn't even noticed that on the billboard in the show

The best thing that would happen is if Nate meets The Ghoul and they end up knowing each other.

My favorite bit of lore the show added

Great show

Rhett Conn has been here

kind of funny that now it's lore that even vault boy couldn't get himself a spot in a vault

Todd Howard is the living embodiment of the "i made this" meme... we didnt need a explanation for the vault suit color scheme or vault boy... but "Howard" being the explanation is pretty much on brand for bethesda at this point.

The thumb thing is an old fable about how you can tell if you're too close to a nuke blast, if it's smaller your safe, but that's a load of malarkey and actually quite dark.

Cooper HOWARD Todd HOWARD

Walton Goggins was born to play Cooper Howard/ The Ghoul.

I loved this honestly. A bit confused why they didn’t make him blonde for continuity but I still was super excited to see this unfold

Don't forget, Freddy and the other animatronics were still children

This was my favorite realization of the show

Something that I’ve been really hoping to see in the next season of fallout is the ghoul confronting his wife and telling her what she has done and what it has done to their family and mainly him

It makes me happy knowing that not only Vault Boy is a real person, he is also still alive.

So happy they did this in the show. We had no idea of the origins. To all the people complaining, if this info was dropped in a game, you'd be eating it up. They are doing a great job. Sit back, and enjoy!

Everytime i hear Act naturally now i just smile 😂

I imagine a scene where Coop in present day meets one of the people from vault-tec or someone else. Who tells his henchmen that: "Hey fellas! This ghoul right here? He was once our poster boy! THE vault boy! COOOOOPER HOWARD!" Something like that.

This show is definitely one of the most unique uses of a ghoul in the franchise. It's super hard to have a ghoul who's past actually matters, since the old world being gone is kinda the whole point of Fallout, but this show manages to do it amazingly

Bro I missed your videos so much I’ve been looking for you

So the Ghoul is Vault Boy? Damn his legacy gets cooler by each episode...

I thought the thumbs up was supposed to be the way you tell how far you are from the blast. Not sure it was official lore or anything but I've heard it many times.

Fun fact that billboard is in the credits and it zooms out but as it zooms out further it transforms him into the ghoul in the human half

Vault Boy uaed to be a redhead.

We are so lucky that we actually got a video game show that turned out so well

I never realised how weird the vault suits actually look when worn outside a vault

Such a great idea for a character

At this point Ive seen all the episodes just form RU-vid shorts

This made me fanboi scream and waynes world bow!😂😂 Cooper is AMAZING!!

vault boy is actually doing the rule of thumb in the beginning :)

This is cannon

That completely went over my head when I watched the show, huh

That’s actually pretty good, gotta hand it to em; they didn’t fuck it up as bad as I thought they would.

Bro one of the best actors and to have him olay in fallot now i have too watch it

The best thing about the show. I was hopeful but they did a great job

No backstory for Vault Girl? I assume she probably was created after Vault Boy just to be the female counterpart, so she never had an actual model. I created a Fallout 4 character made to look similar to Vault Girl and gave her the backstory that she was the model for her, but was cryogenically frozen, like the actual protagonist. It makes it so the dialogue isn't too wrong, with my alternative start mod, and a mod that makes it so Shaun isn't my son, but just the leader of the Institute. It works, kind of.

We also know (very likely at least) where the violin music cane from in Fallout 4

You actually see The Ghoul (Cooper Howard) shoot the head off of a vault boy on a billboard, soon after he captures Lucy; this shows his full resentment towards vault-tec and his denial to be involved with the company.

They need a ghoul bobble head. Fallout 5 play as a ghoul or supermutant.

I'm surprised they didn't bleach his hair in the show. The vault-tech boy is blonde

I like that reason far less for the thumbs up than the original one, which is that there was an urban myth of seeing if you were safe from an atomic explosion by bringing you thumb up, if your thumb covers it then you're fine.

Yes and no, the vault boy is actually showing the rule of thumb which I'm sure we all know the definition of.

We can only hope cooper meets the puppet man

That explains why he refuses to do the thumbs up in the first episode when the guy asks him to for the photo

So the villain of fallout… is vault boy? 💀

so i've been -holding my friends hostage- making my friends watch fallout, and also slowly introduce them to the games, and i was showing one of them fallout 3 the other day where i stumbled into the gary vault. he just went "oh that's the vault boy right after cooper, cuz there's like clones of him and he's blond too" i had no words it just makes too much sense lmao

He is more valut guy than a vault boy.

Personally, I liked the mystery of who the Vault Boy was before the war. Made for some real cool speculation.

Cooper “HOWARD!?”COINCIDENCE?

Are u Kidding me the Thumb is to mess the Distance between u and Blast

I never caught onto that

You can tell the people behind series one of Westworld were behind Fallout. So well written and directed. I am 100% sure anyone else would have fucked it up.

The thumb is actually because you hold up your thumb to a mushroom cloud in the distance, and if the mushroom cloud is bigger than your thumb, then you’re about to die of radiation or fallout, and if the mushroom cloud is smaller than your thumb in the distance, you are safe

but they said that the vault boy was doing the thumbs up to check for a nuke cloud 😅

I think it would be cool if it turns out he did the voice for victor in nv

Here’s another question. Who is the vault girl? Is she made up or is she a real person?

I’ve always wondered how vault boy ended up blonde. Good eye in noticing that covered up billboard. It makes so much sense they’d literally cover him up after stealing his likeness and ideas.

Hes going to be known as the vault boy from here on out

That’s John Vault

Loved this show but the guy looks so little like the cartoon vault boy that I'm genuinely surprised they tried to say he was the same guy 😂

This channel rocks ✌️

I KNEW IT!!! My girl and I just started watching, but we're doing one episode a day to make it last. The moment I saw Cooper in that blue and yellow and how he was well known, like he was really big once, like The Rock, big, then how they were treating him like he messed up, it got me thinking of how the sole survivor would have been treated if he had made the speech he planned on. But that got me thinking. What could this guy have done to be so widely known that a step down would be a children's entertainer, but the men would look down on him for a decision he made. Well, he's clearly used to the entertainment biz. I'm guessing he's some sort of actor. They want his to... give... a thumbs... oh... OOOHHHHHH! This is THE Vault Boy! Wait... why are they treating him like that? He should be majorly popular. But now he's just doing gigs at children's birthday parties. Who has the power to cancel someone like tha- oh. Why though?

The original lore behind the "thumbs up" vault boy is the whole idea about checking wheter or not you're in the blast zone of the atomic bomb, if they mushroom cloud is covered by your thumb, you're good, if it does not, you're dead

What the heck is it with so many actors and sings becoming ghouls, I mean this guy and Dean Domino from fallout New Vegas.

So the blue and gold colors were chosen by Vault Tech because of Cooper.

Wait isn't vault boy thumbs up is to measure how safe he is???

I swear to god if his horse isn’t buttercup I’m gonna lose my shit.

Wasn't that thumb up a way to estimate the distance of an explosion or something?

I always fucking wondered because i was like bros hair is not even blonde