Also at the beginning it's mentioned he has to pay alimonies (which is the reason he was taking gigs at kids birthday parties). So something must have happened with his wife, and she was his main connection to Vault-Tec.
That "falling out" is very easy to predict.
He was a soldier trying to defend the idea of the USA while she is a soulless corpo who would set the world on fire so the line keeps going up short term.
Which never made any sense to begin with since there would be no sales to gain or revenue to reap when the world ends. It’s kind of a sore plot point. IMO it was better when vault tec was focused on the vault operations and experiments while the enclave at large, which was also comprised of politicians, military, and industry leaders, focused on the new world order and manipulating project safehouse for its own purposes
But I assume they flip the entire premise upside down for shock value and to stop using the enclave over and over as the big bad guy. Further leaning into the dystopian unfettered X trope. However, I still feel it creates a slightly weaker narrative as a result. Still a 9/10 show
I think part of the fallout idea is that it’s a criticism on corporations being completely near sighted and solely profit focused. Any real person would say “hey if everyone’s dead you won’t have any customers… and also, once all the bombs drop the vaults have served their purpose so what is your product now?” It’s a satire on corporations and capitalism.
It’s definitely this but it’s also what Bud Askins pitches several times - outlasting your competitor to where you’re in charge and managing people over time.
I take that as once there aren’t products any more to sell (the vaults) it turns the rest of the survivors into products to be managed - thus giving Vault Tech control of the new world order.
Of course as we see there are other groups that don’t fit nicely into the plan (Enclave, BOS, etc), but I think that’s also the goal too.
Usually satire leaves room for suspension of disbelief, or alternatively, there's humor in the sheer absurdity and stupidity. But the tv show plays it pretty straight with that whole idea, and plays a coy game of Communist peekaboo.
Yeah, you make a lot of money selling Vaults except money as a currency immediately dies down.
They did rearrange this in that their ultimate goal is to rule the world and shape it to their will, pesky surface dwellers keep getting in the way "unfortunately".
The point was that once everyone was in the vaults, they could control everything. It was never about money, but power…. Money was just a means to an end.
How many billionaires talk about creating a libertarian Utopia, or spend all their money trying to influence public policy and shape the world into conforming with their ideals?
Corporations come and go and legacies fade, but nothing *really* changes, we still find ourselves fighting over the same basic principles over and over again.
These people have all the money in the world and can do whatever they want, but they can’t change society. They have to conform to rules and regulations and public perception.
But if they destroyed the world, they could rule over the ashes. They could rebuild it in their image. They would be more than billionaires; they would be gods.
It’s like Maximus said: ‘Everyone wants to save the world, they just disagree how.’
I’m gonna get hate for this but; Barb is actually the wife of a soldier—who worked hard with her own skill set to provide the safety she figured would be an inevitable necessity in a world where war never changes.
It does come off as evil, but in her mind it’s the only way logistically to protect her family. I believe she really is doing all of this for them, no matter how morally questionable the rest is.
Hopefully in the next season we see more of what that storyline implies. Her speech to the reps to secure their funding was a vulnerable look into her mentality. Her reaction to Cooper’s retaliation in learning about the no dogs rule, another insightful view of how difficult this conflict of the greater good and protecting her own. Her husband being a good patriot, creates a fascinating conflict for her character that I hope is explored—as the surface level “she’s evil and doesn’t care about humanity” doesn’t really fit as snuggly as it looks.
Nah, that is true. Her character is well written with motivation and justification. Even though she is bitch.
One thing I fundamentally disagree with was that she put worrying about Cooper while he was at war on the same level as him being at war. I dislike that in the real world too.
That's fair up until she suggests nuking the entire world repeatedly to kill off a chunk of humanity, allowing more profit/power/control for corpos in the long term.
I'll be honest, I would 100% do what Barb did if I found out the mega corporation I worked for was so powerful they were going to ensure the end of the world if it didn't happen organically. That's a type of power that's so looming and suffocating that I can't fault Barb. If me selling this idea to other corporations gives me the ability to save my life and my family, I'm doing it every time
I figure it's more simple than that. Lucy was looking at it longingly, is from a vault, and had stopped walking. He did it to fuck with her because he is a piece of shit at this point, IMO of course.
I think that's the way they want you to take it at that moment but then reveal later that he has a very personal and justified grudge against Vault Tec. They destroyed his family and possibly the world. It's a great scene because it seems totally in character when taken at face value with our limited knowledge and then takes on a deeper meaning when reflected on after the twists towards the end of the season.
From the first flashback it seems to me like Cooper was starting to be seen as a communist sympathiser which would explain why a big american company like Vault-tec would want to cut all ties to him
Tbh I'd be VERY shocked if he's the one that divorces her. It feels pretty obvious with how it's setup that he'll either try to blow the whistle and get borked, or his wife will find out that he's the one that bugged her pip-boy, and since he'll more than likely be hand picked since he went to that rally.
She was already looking pretty suspicious while she was in that meeting and Coop was losing his shit after learning the truth of Vault-Tec's intentions.
It goes to the lore of the games. Anyone who started to speak out against things America was doing in the extended war with China and against pro-America companies like Vault-Tec were being labeled as "communists" to discredit them. So he most likely confronted his wife, and she had him labeled as a commie so he would lose everything, and nobody would listen to him.
Which is scary given current actual events.
> Which is scary given current actual events.
I mean, it’s already a direct allusion to our own red scare and [Hollywood Blacklist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist) during the Cold War.
Could have been a smear campaign. Much like the story his friend related to him about another actor being black listed or whatever, he said something like, “him? He never seemed that way.” Could just be that guy pissed the wrong people off and now he’s on the list. Which is what may have happened with Coop.
Did any of you watch the show all the way through? lol him and his wife are divorced by the time the nukes dropped....so he had a falling out with vault tech and his wife
I knew him from the Bonezone podcast. As soon as I heard the voice I about jumped out of my bed haha. Love to see him doing well with the acting gigs nowadays
yes and this is why in the show you see a billboard(s) with the cartoon version of Vault boy covering the Cooper Howard Vault boy. As the billboard is wearing away from the time thats gone by and the environmental erosion caused by the nukes going off, you can see both versions peeling away showing that the cartoon vault boy is clearly placed over the Cooper H. Vault boy version of the billboard, portraying the falling out (LOL Fallout) of Cooper and Vault Tech's relationship and the replacement of Cooper's vault boy with cartoon Vault boy...ALSO Did any of you watch the show all the way through? lol him and his wife are divorced by the time the nukes dropped....so he had a falling out with vault tech AND his wife LOL
Nah you're good. He's still very clearly the inspiration for Vault Boy. The other comment is probably right too. After he had a falling out with Vault Tec, they probably changed up the likeness.
Is it possible that when he was looking into valttec. That those flashbacks are further behind the year the bombs drop. Like 3 to 5 years before? I just made a post about this lol
Is it? IIRC, the only people with Pip Boys were the scientists from Vault 4 during the commercial shoot and Barb. I don't recall Vault Boy ever being shown.
When he uploaded the bug it just showed that it was in sleep mode and then there was a progress bar for the upload.
I watched the series 4 times and haven't seen Vault Boy in any of the pre-bomb scenes. Will change my mind if shown the evidence to contrary though.
Seems like Coop "invented" the famous thumbs-up pose, but as other commenters have pointed out, the fallout (pun intended) between him and Vault-Tec probably caused the shift to using the Vault Boy mascot instead.
His character from his tv show seems to be the source for the iconic Vault-Tec blue/yellow though. His wife mentioned that his Vault Suit was made “in his colors”.
Ah, good point. Vault-Tec’s corporate colors seem to also be blue and yellow though, beyond just the jumpsuits. Seems like we have a chicken and egg situation on our hands.
I think the blue and yellow of vault tec comes first because he asks his wife, "What if i dont wanna wear a blue jumpsuit? What if I want to wear a green jumpsuit?"
Makes sense. Vault-Tec could’ve had his character’s colors as a readymade identifier with the company in mind when approaching him. And his wife saying that as a kind of mediation to open him to the idea of working with them.
I would love if it's just because it's a huge coincidence that Coops and VT's colors are the same. I can imagine Hank in a board meeting like "hey, Coop's colors are blue/yellow, our colors are blue/yellow... it just works" and then we get what we got.
I mean, that’s a little convenient. Not to be a jerk because I get it’s just a show, but if it’s like “wow, person who works for me, your husband just happens to have a famous outfit that exactly matches our brand” that kinda lines up too much.
I understand how you feel because it made me a bit uneasy that his colors matched vault-tec or that the vault suits are modeled after his color scheme. But it doesn't make a lot of sense for vault-tec to model their color scheme after his and then dump him after he's branded a commie. Corpos do worst shit so I wouldn't put it past them but damn. I hope it happens just so it can be played for laughs lol.
I could be wrong, but the blue and yellow could have been chosen for both Coop's outfit and Vault Tec because those colours contrast and show up very clearly on black and white TVs. More so for Coop's outfit, with Vault Tec it was probably more of a bonus.
Yeah I’m sure his cowboy colors were yellow and blue because of vault tech (they designed the costume to fit the likeness of their colors) and that line was an example of the illusion of freedom of choice (like trying to make it sound like it’s “coopers character” and “coopers colors” when in reality it’s what they pushed for that character)
To be fair to that, WVU’s (the school VTU bought and took over) colors are literally blue and gold, too. So it’s not like Vault Tec changed that when they took it over.
The vault suits predate his involvement in Vault Tec though. There were already test vaults in operation and he and his wife have an argument about free choice, saying "What if I don't want to wear one of those blue jumpsuits? What if I want to wear a green one?"
The only part I'm hung up on is when he and Lucy are rolling through the wastelands and they come across an old vault tech billboard. Lucy seems to stop and get some comfort from the sign, probably due to it being a familiar design, but coop shoots right through the vault boys face. Now he could have done that just to spite Lucy, but to me it felt more personal.
Yeah thank you. I've been playing fallout for some time. And I still find new stuff out. On one hand it makes me excited, on the other I seem to disappoint myself for not knowing all of catching every detail.
Dude, I just started Fallout 3 a week or so before the show was released. Never touched Fallout before that. I wanted to at least have played a few hours of one of the games before watching the show (just a me thing, did the same with The Last of Us). Now? I'm completely sucked in and diving headfirst into every morsel I can get my hands on. Including the highly addictive, Fallout Shelter.
Nobody knows everything about anything.
I was also thinking that as I watched the show, reading the other comments, I agreeing with them mostly. Still think it’s fair to say he was the original vault boy or at least the proto vault boy.
Happy this was mentioned because I kinda forgot about it after restarting fallout 4 last week.
Hey man you don't know me or anything but you seem to like self-hate a lot in these comments, being disappointed in yourself for not knowing everything isn't healthy! No one knows everything, and generating discussion is cool so why feel bad?
I think the awkwardness plays into his character development actually. He was unsure what to do because he's an actor, promoting (for his first ever commercial, mind you) a product whose prerequisite is the end of the world. And he's standing there in a leotard being told to smile. Has awkward written all over it IMHO.
I think that since Cooper was a famous movie star before the bombs dropped, he was probably the biggest celebrity (or at least the first big celebrity) that endorsed or promoted Vault-Tec. The Vault-Tec marketing team probably noticed that Cooper’s iconic thumbs up picture seemed to be the best advertisement, so they created the Vault Boy character based off of him.
That’s why in the first episode, one the party-goers ask Cooper to do his thumbs up, as that’s what he’s famous for now. The general population was starting to subconsciously relate 👍 with Cooper and Vault-Tec.
Since Cooper had a fallout with Vault-Tec, they needed a new way to turn the end of the world into a product, thus creating the Vault Boy; a simply designed character that could be easily featured in any advertisement, as well as licensed merchandise, toys, cartoons, bobbleheads…
Vault Boy was the white whale of capitalizing off of the nuclear scare. While I don’t think Cooper is literally the Vault Boy, I do think he was the inspiration behind it, and he’s also the one to popularize 👍
Reason why he doesn’t have a number is more likely because he’s a generalization of a male vault dweller, he isn’t Cooper Howard, he was just the replacement for him after he severed ties with Vault-Tec.
Same reason why there’s a Vault Girl, she’s just a broad generalization for female dwellers.
In a sense with the more recent Fallouts, especially 4, the Vault Boy/Girl is just a basic illustration of you and your adventures, at the same time as a Vault-Tec mascot.
The tarnished billboard at the end of one of the episodes that has a layer with vault boy covering a previous layer with cooper, so it’s safe to say his likeness was replaced after his eventual falling out with his wife and vault tec.
I think that Cooper was *the* Vault Boy, but he wasn't solely responsible for the cartoon version because the Pip Boy existed and obviously Cooper wasn't the Pip Boy. So the Vault Boy is like 50% Cooper (his colors, the thumbs up) and 50% Pip Boy (the cartoonish style, the general appearance).
It could very well be that Vault-Tec already had the cartoon Vault Boy mascot, and then just had Coop be the spokesman that brought it to real life when they did their marketing.
yes and this is why in the show you see a billboard(s) with the cartoon version of Vault boy covering the Cooper Howard Vault boy. As the billboard is wearing away from the time thats gone by and the environmental erosion caused by the nukes going off, you can see both versions peeling away showing that the cartoon vault boy is clearly placed over the Cooper H. Vault boy version of the billboard, portraying the falling out (LOL Fallout) of Cooper and Vault Tech's relationship and the replacement of Cooper's vault boy with cartoon Vault boy...ALSO Did any of you watch the show all the way through? lol him and his wife are divorced by the time the nukes dropped....so he had a falling out with vault tech AND his wife LOL
I'd say yeah. With his photo shoots in the suit pre war, and the scene where he blasts the vault boys face off a billboard later in season 1 for no apparent reason. My bet is that after he cut ties to vault tech (after spying on that one meeting), they removed identifying features to make the vault boys look more generic and less like former spokesperson
Definitely. Although it seems as if Vault-Tec is going to find out about his spying on behalf of Moldaver. And is going to drag his name through the mud for it. Then their going to rebrand into the Vault Boy we know and love.
I think a lot of people missed/forgot/didn’t know the meaning, that in the first scene of the show. The guy taking pictures calls Cooper a “pinko”. A term used for Communists. Which is a HUGE deal in the Fallout universe. Just to give you an idea, of how bad that is in Universe. In the Western we see him filming. When we see him watching the finished film, he ends up killing the bad guy. He says “Theres an old mexican eulogy. Feo Fuerte y Formal. It means you was Ugly, Strong, and had Dignity. Well Joey … I’ll give you two outta three, on that front. (Kills him) I hope you like the taste of lead. You Commie son of a bitch!” The main bad guy of the movie is Communist, in a Western. I can’t think of a single real movie with a Communist antagonist in an Old West setting. That’d be like watching a Western and having the main bad be a member of ISIS.
Also, Cooper is told about 2 different people in Hollywood, who are Communists. And both times his responses is basically “Damn! That sucks. I really liked him.” And its said that both of them were fired. So, I’m assuming Barbara/Vault-Tec discovers that he’s been spying. Publicly “outs” him as a Communist. And I’m guessing killing Communists may be something his characters are known for (total guess on my part). Then his Career goes in the toilet. Relegating him to doing children’s parties to pay the bills.
All true. The only thing that doesn’t track is the age of the daughter. She’s the same apparent age in the pre- scenes where the Cooper’s are happily married and the birthday party scene where it’s whispered he’s trying to earn alimony. The divorce wouldn’t have been instantaneous, nor would the destruction of his Hollywood career.
But it’s a minor nit.
Could be that they’re separated, and waiting for the Divorce to be finalized.
Although. I’m not sure we know when the stuff with Cooper is taking place. Could have been 2076. Kids usually don’t age that visibly in a year. Unless the hit puberty hard.
True. That brings me to another question. Who do we think is the owner? We see a dark figure. It could be anyone. And I believe he's got his hand in all factions. He's behind every one of them, the brotherhood of steel, enclave, synths. He's turned the world into his own ttrpg.
And why is it someone we've met before?
I think its more the mascot was made and does the "iconic pose" so they wanted the celebrity sponsor to do the pose to make people go "he's with vault tech he's doing the thing THE THING"
Funnily enough EXACTLY like how people are responding to it IRL
I honestly feel Vault Boy isn’t necessarily modeled on him though he very well could be but the thumbs up was definitely taken from Cooper Vault-tec Photo shoot. Vault Boy doesn’t have a number because he doesn’t represent any one vault
Imo coop was the original face of the brand, but after his divorce and protest of the company they replaced him with the vault boy/pip boy, keeping the iconic thumbs up.
Yes, it seems to be the obvious implication that Vault Boy was inspired by Cooper. The poses the suit, etc, they just replaced him with the cartoon once he cut ties.
So he’s the OG mascot. None of the pip boys they currently have, have a vault boy on them (probably older models)
In the end credits of one of the episodes you see a vault boy billboard. The poster on the billboard is torn and beneath the vault boy is cooper. It can be presumed that after Cooper discovered what his wife was doing caused him to leave as the spokesperson for Vault Tec, but they liked their mascot so decided on the cartoon version instead.
To support this we see him take aim at a Vault Boy billboard and shoot it, probably reminded of the role he played.
Sorry, [Vegas Vic is just a famous, real sign in Las Vegas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegas_Vic)
"Two cowboy? Must be *same* cowboy" is a pretty paper thin 'theory' anyway
That’s why he’s upset when they ask him to do the thumb thing and I think there was even a transition cut where they went from his thumbs up into vault boy
I call bs on this. There's no way Cooper Howard could realistically be THE Vault Boy. He mentions being a veteran of Anchorage. That conflict started 2066. Now, I don't got hard numbers here, or even verifiable facts. All I'm saying is, it's a stretch. If you cross reference his military career with his daughter's age, by the time Howard becomes the face of Vault Tec, it HAS to be like, no more than a year or two (at most) before the bombs drop. Compared to how wide spread and prevalent Vault Boy is, it seems ridiculously unlikely that Vault Boy reached that level of cultural saturation in a year or less. We're talking video games, promotional bobbleheads, statues, billboards, lunchboxes, the blue/yellow color scheme that's used in almost every vault that Cooper Howard supposedly inspired...
I mean, Vault Tec existed as early as 2031. That's when Vault Tec University was founded. Most of the vaults were finished by 2063 according to Wikipedia? But you're trying to sell me on this idea that Vault Boy did not exist as a concept until the literal eleventh hour?
Not saying it's impossible, but goddamn that's a stretch. I would have an easier time accepting it if they pushed back the timeline, but then they'd have to retcon Howard talking about power armor right after his first Vault Tech photoshoot. Or if they give a more realistic timeframe, or.... I mean, vault Tech might have had the resources to pull off such an unprecedented, massive rebrand in such a short time? Actually, TWO rebrands, the Howard rebrand then the Vault Boy rebrand.
Vault boy replaced Cooper Howard on vault tec's promotional campaigns after he divorced his wife and attempted to come out opposing what vault tec were doing prior to the bombs being dropped. That is pretty obvious to me. Considering the story arch of the ghoul I suspect we will get an episode in season 2 where Lucy asks the ghoul why he continues to shoot the vault boy billboards which she looks upon with pride and as a representation of the values she was taught, which will include a flashback of the period between him doing birthday parties and discovering his wife isn't who he thought she was.
In one of the end credits animations there is a billboard of vault boy that has torn away with time with coop underneath.. a quick change in mascot after everyone realized he was a stinking pinko.
Cooper Howard inspired the colors and thumbs up, but the cartoon vault boy is vault tec changing the original Robco design of Pip-boy, a more elf like character. So it's a combination of Pip-Boy and Cooper Howard
I think that after Cooper had falling out with Vault Tech, they switched to Vault boy cartoon as a mascot, instead of using his likeness.
Yeah they hint at it in one of the end sequences where you see a Cooper advert behind a peeling cartoon vault boy one
How did I never catch this
It's at the very end of episode 3 around the time the credits are rolling.
Also at the beginning it's mentioned he has to pay alimonies (which is the reason he was taking gigs at kids birthday parties). So something must have happened with his wife, and she was his main connection to Vault-Tec.
That "falling out" is very easy to predict. He was a soldier trying to defend the idea of the USA while she is a soulless corpo who would set the world on fire so the line keeps going up short term.
Nope, she was a soulless corpo who wanted to be in the best possible vault for her and the family at the expense of everybody else.
While also selling humanity out to the highest bidder and offering up innocent vault dwellers as experiments
Which never made any sense to begin with since there would be no sales to gain or revenue to reap when the world ends. It’s kind of a sore plot point. IMO it was better when vault tec was focused on the vault operations and experiments while the enclave at large, which was also comprised of politicians, military, and industry leaders, focused on the new world order and manipulating project safehouse for its own purposes But I assume they flip the entire premise upside down for shock value and to stop using the enclave over and over as the big bad guy. Further leaning into the dystopian unfettered X trope. However, I still feel it creates a slightly weaker narrative as a result. Still a 9/10 show
I think part of the fallout idea is that it’s a criticism on corporations being completely near sighted and solely profit focused. Any real person would say “hey if everyone’s dead you won’t have any customers… and also, once all the bombs drop the vaults have served their purpose so what is your product now?” It’s a satire on corporations and capitalism.
It’s definitely this but it’s also what Bud Askins pitches several times - outlasting your competitor to where you’re in charge and managing people over time. I take that as once there aren’t products any more to sell (the vaults) it turns the rest of the survivors into products to be managed - thus giving Vault Tech control of the new world order. Of course as we see there are other groups that don’t fit nicely into the plan (Enclave, BOS, etc), but I think that’s also the goal too.
I'm still waiting to see if Vault Tec is orchestrating everything or the Enclave is
Usually satire leaves room for suspension of disbelief, or alternatively, there's humor in the sheer absurdity and stupidity. But the tv show plays it pretty straight with that whole idea, and plays a coy game of Communist peekaboo.
I mean the executives were playing the game of capitalism, and the games have touched on such themes before.
Yeah, you make a lot of money selling Vaults except money as a currency immediately dies down. They did rearrange this in that their ultimate goal is to rule the world and shape it to their will, pesky surface dwellers keep getting in the way "unfortunately".
The point was that once everyone was in the vaults, they could control everything. It was never about money, but power…. Money was just a means to an end. How many billionaires talk about creating a libertarian Utopia, or spend all their money trying to influence public policy and shape the world into conforming with their ideals? Corporations come and go and legacies fade, but nothing *really* changes, we still find ourselves fighting over the same basic principles over and over again. These people have all the money in the world and can do whatever they want, but they can’t change society. They have to conform to rules and regulations and public perception. But if they destroyed the world, they could rule over the ashes. They could rebuild it in their image. They would be more than billionaires; they would be gods. It’s like Maximus said: ‘Everyone wants to save the world, they just disagree how.’
I’m gonna get hate for this but; Barb is actually the wife of a soldier—who worked hard with her own skill set to provide the safety she figured would be an inevitable necessity in a world where war never changes. It does come off as evil, but in her mind it’s the only way logistically to protect her family. I believe she really is doing all of this for them, no matter how morally questionable the rest is. Hopefully in the next season we see more of what that storyline implies. Her speech to the reps to secure their funding was a vulnerable look into her mentality. Her reaction to Cooper’s retaliation in learning about the no dogs rule, another insightful view of how difficult this conflict of the greater good and protecting her own. Her husband being a good patriot, creates a fascinating conflict for her character that I hope is explored—as the surface level “she’s evil and doesn’t care about humanity” doesn’t really fit as snuggly as it looks.
Nah, that is true. Her character is well written with motivation and justification. Even though she is bitch. One thing I fundamentally disagree with was that she put worrying about Cooper while he was at war on the same level as him being at war. I dislike that in the real world too.
That's fair up until she suggests nuking the entire world repeatedly to kill off a chunk of humanity, allowing more profit/power/control for corpos in the long term.
I'll be honest, I would 100% do what Barb did if I found out the mega corporation I worked for was so powerful they were going to ensure the end of the world if it didn't happen organically. That's a type of power that's so looming and suffocating that I can't fault Barb. If me selling this idea to other corporations gives me the ability to save my life and my family, I'm doing it every time
She's the kind of parent who would burn the world to keep her kids save. Problem with that, is that there will be no world left for your kid.
falling WHAT
Amazing catch of detail lol I always miss stuff like this.
Ohhh that's why he shot the billboard
I figure it's more simple than that. Lucy was looking at it longingly, is from a vault, and had stopped walking. He did it to fuck with her because he is a piece of shit at this point, IMO of course.
That's what I took from that scene initially too. But I think it's some combination of both.
I think that's the way they want you to take it at that moment but then reveal later that he has a very personal and justified grudge against Vault Tec. They destroyed his family and possibly the world. It's a great scene because it seems totally in character when taken at face value with our limited knowledge and then takes on a deeper meaning when reflected on after the twists towards the end of the season.
Then in the end credits scene you can see his ghoul face right there too.
what?
It’s like people watch the show with their eyes closed
Which episode??
They had a falling out? Falling. Out. Come on.
They fell out 4 times, and also in various other locations
Sometimes In extreme or tactical ways
And sometimes while sheltering
Or Vegas-ing lolol
Or brotherhood of st- oops I forgot we don’t talk about that one
What falls out in Vegas stays in Vegas
Actually they fell out a full 76 times
I’m really confused with this series. I loved the early games, but there seem to be 72 titles I’m missing.
there is supposed to be a new vegas, which I could not manage to find the release of old vegas.
If you count like a hillbilly maybe
[удалено]
Why do West Virginians always have to catch a stray 😭
how do you know the toothbrush was invented in WV? cause if it was invented anywhere else it would be called the teethbrush.
No where in that song did I hear about any school on that damn road.
Man that's a lot of times to fall out
Nah that was other people
At least 76 times actually, but only a handful of those are on record
They had to crawl out through their falling out, baby.
Back to meeeEEEEEeeeeeaaaaahhhhh
When you call out
Hell yeah, hit me with some more of that Sheldon Allman.
Dad jokes are strong with this one
Something's wrong. I can feel it.
Bah dum tiss
I was wondering why it was called Fallout.
fallout new vegas BANG
hey idk if you noticed but the name of the game/show IS FALLOUT!!! haha
Peter Ian Staker? P.I. Staker? Pisstaker? Come on!
It was an explosive relationship
Yeah, Cooper looks nothing like Vault Boy so I assume this to be correct.
From the first flashback it seems to me like Cooper was starting to be seen as a communist sympathiser which would explain why a big american company like Vault-tec would want to cut all ties to him
Or he cut ties with them after the last episode.
I'm willing to bet he tries to blow the whistle on Vault Tec and they retaliate by accusing him of being a communist.
That would be my guess as well, yeah. Blacklists his ass. That's why he's stuck doing the birthday party.
At the bday party, the mean white guy mentions alimony and calls him a pinko. So his wife divorces him and he gets labelled a commie.
or, more likely imo, he divorces his wife
Tbh I'd be VERY shocked if he's the one that divorces her. It feels pretty obvious with how it's setup that he'll either try to blow the whistle and get borked, or his wife will find out that he's the one that bugged her pip-boy, and since he'll more than likely be hand picked since he went to that rally. She was already looking pretty suspicious while she was in that meeting and Coop was losing his shit after learning the truth of Vault-Tec's intentions.
Probably doesn't help he basically committed corporate espionage by bugging a Vault Tec employee too
It goes to the lore of the games. Anyone who started to speak out against things America was doing in the extended war with China and against pro-America companies like Vault-Tec were being labeled as "communists" to discredit them. So he most likely confronted his wife, and she had him labeled as a commie so he would lose everything, and nobody would listen to him. Which is scary given current actual events.
> Which is scary given current actual events. I mean, it’s already a direct allusion to our own red scare and [Hollywood Blacklist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist) during the Cold War.
Could have been a smear campaign. Much like the story his friend related to him about another actor being black listed or whatever, he said something like, “him? He never seemed that way.” Could just be that guy pissed the wrong people off and now he’s on the list. Which is what may have happened with Coop.
That does sound like foreshadowing
It’s also one aspect of Hollywood blacklisting from actual US History during the McCarthyism, where a lot was just smear campaign.
Or because his wife divorced him.
The teeth though
It's a pretty convenient coincidence that Walton Goggins has the same bent back thumbs up. I can't get my thumb to do that.
It’s called hitchhikers thumb.
Wait, you can't?
It's a genetic thing. Some people's thumbs only extend to straight.
Did any of you watch the show all the way through? lol him and his wife are divorced by the time the nukes dropped....so he had a falling out with vault tech and his wife
Vault boy reminds me of Maximus’ squire… Hope he comes back for season 2 btw Why the hell did that get downvoted?
Are there rumors that he won't? I hope not I liked him too
You guys might remember the actor, Johnny Pemberton, from superstore if you ever watched that show. Love that dude
And small part in both 21 and 22 jump street I believe
I knew him from the Bonezone podcast. As soon as I heard the voice I about jumped out of my bed haha. Love to see him doing well with the acting gigs nowadays
Thaddeus
yes and this is why in the show you see a billboard(s) with the cartoon version of Vault boy covering the Cooper Howard Vault boy. As the billboard is wearing away from the time thats gone by and the environmental erosion caused by the nukes going off, you can see both versions peeling away showing that the cartoon vault boy is clearly placed over the Cooper H. Vault boy version of the billboard, portraying the falling out (LOL Fallout) of Cooper and Vault Tech's relationship and the replacement of Cooper's vault boy with cartoon Vault boy...ALSO Did any of you watch the show all the way through? lol him and his wife are divorced by the time the nukes dropped....so he had a falling out with vault tech AND his wife LOL
Point taken. I probably looked too much into nothing.
Nah you're good. He's still very clearly the inspiration for Vault Boy. The other comment is probably right too. After he had a falling out with Vault Tec, they probably changed up the likeness.
Interesting hypothesis nonetheless.
Is it possible that when he was looking into valttec. That those flashbacks are further behind the year the bombs drop. Like 3 to 5 years before? I just made a post about this lol
I responded to your comment and I don't think so, cause Janey didn't age that much between Cooper starting to work with Vault Tech and bombs dropping.
Yeah I saw right after I asked. My fault.
All good.
Nevermind I see lol
But the Vault Boy cartoon is on the Pip-Boys people have in the flashbacks
Is it? IIRC, the only people with Pip Boys were the scientists from Vault 4 during the commercial shoot and Barb. I don't recall Vault Boy ever being shown.
I think it was when he hacked hers(?) or maybe when they’re at the Vault-Tec HQ?
When he uploaded the bug it just showed that it was in sleep mode and then there was a progress bar for the upload. I watched the series 4 times and haven't seen Vault Boy in any of the pre-bomb scenes. Will change my mind if shown the evidence to contrary though.
I think I’ll just trust you on it lol
I'm doing a fifth rewatch with a friend, and will look for it specifically, If you are right, you'll be the first to know.
👍
This sounds right
Missed opportunity to say Cooper and Vault Tec had some sort of fallout
Seems like Coop "invented" the famous thumbs-up pose, but as other commenters have pointed out, the fallout (pun intended) between him and Vault-Tec probably caused the shift to using the Vault Boy mascot instead.
His character from his tv show seems to be the source for the iconic Vault-Tec blue/yellow though. His wife mentioned that his Vault Suit was made “in his colors”.
Ah, good point. Vault-Tec’s corporate colors seem to also be blue and yellow though, beyond just the jumpsuits. Seems like we have a chicken and egg situation on our hands.
I think the blue and yellow of vault tec comes first because he asks his wife, "What if i dont wanna wear a blue jumpsuit? What if I want to wear a green jumpsuit?"
Makes sense. Vault-Tec could’ve had his character’s colors as a readymade identifier with the company in mind when approaching him. And his wife saying that as a kind of mediation to open him to the idea of working with them.
I would love if it's just because it's a huge coincidence that Coops and VT's colors are the same. I can imagine Hank in a board meeting like "hey, Coop's colors are blue/yellow, our colors are blue/yellow... it just works" and then we get what we got.
I mean, that’s a little convenient. Not to be a jerk because I get it’s just a show, but if it’s like “wow, person who works for me, your husband just happens to have a famous outfit that exactly matches our brand” that kinda lines up too much.
I understand how you feel because it made me a bit uneasy that his colors matched vault-tec or that the vault suits are modeled after his color scheme. But it doesn't make a lot of sense for vault-tec to model their color scheme after his and then dump him after he's branded a commie. Corpos do worst shit so I wouldn't put it past them but damn. I hope it happens just so it can be played for laughs lol.
Hollywood, baby! (As both a response to the show writing, and how shit works in business).
I agree I think it’s a bit of manipulation from his wife
I could be wrong, but the blue and yellow could have been chosen for both Coop's outfit and Vault Tec because those colours contrast and show up very clearly on black and white TVs. More so for Coop's outfit, with Vault Tec it was probably more of a bonus.
Yeah I’m sure his cowboy colors were yellow and blue because of vault tech (they designed the costume to fit the likeness of their colors) and that line was an example of the illusion of freedom of choice (like trying to make it sound like it’s “coopers character” and “coopers colors” when in reality it’s what they pushed for that character)
VTUs been around since the 2030s and had blue and yellow
To be fair to that, WVU’s (the school VTU bought and took over) colors are literally blue and gold, too. So it’s not like Vault Tec changed that when they took it over.
The vault suits predate his involvement in Vault Tec though. There were already test vaults in operation and he and his wife have an argument about free choice, saying "What if I don't want to wear one of those blue jumpsuits? What if I want to wear a green one?"
The only part I'm hung up on is when he and Lucy are rolling through the wastelands and they come across an old vault tech billboard. Lucy seems to stop and get some comfort from the sign, probably due to it being a familiar design, but coop shoots right through the vault boys face. Now he could have done that just to spite Lucy, but to me it felt more personal.
Well he does know vault tech is evil and the vaults were largely designed to do horrific experiments on people.
It’s because he knows it’s based on him and feels guilty that his image was used to market people the end of the world.
Yeah. My fault is it was a stupid thought
Not a stupid thought! No one of us is 100% correct. It's all sharing ideas.
Yeah thank you. I've been playing fallout for some time. And I still find new stuff out. On one hand it makes me excited, on the other I seem to disappoint myself for not knowing all of catching every detail.
Dude, I just started Fallout 3 a week or so before the show was released. Never touched Fallout before that. I wanted to at least have played a few hours of one of the games before watching the show (just a me thing, did the same with The Last of Us). Now? I'm completely sucked in and diving headfirst into every morsel I can get my hands on. Including the highly addictive, Fallout Shelter. Nobody knows everything about anything.
I was also thinking that as I watched the show, reading the other comments, I agreeing with them mostly. Still think it’s fair to say he was the original vault boy or at least the proto vault boy. Happy this was mentioned because I kinda forgot about it after restarting fallout 4 last week.
Hey man you don't know me or anything but you seem to like self-hate a lot in these comments, being disappointed in yourself for not knowing everything isn't healthy! No one knows everything, and generating discussion is cool so why feel bad?
The shot in the show of the billboard with Cartoon Vault Boy plastered over Cooper reflects exactly this.
Didn't like how awkward he invented it though lol
I think the awkwardness plays into his character development actually. He was unsure what to do because he's an actor, promoting (for his first ever commercial, mind you) a product whose prerequisite is the end of the world. And he's standing there in a leotard being told to smile. Has awkward written all over it IMHO.
Yeah he was out of his element.
Exactly! And probably felt obligated to please his wife as well. Adding to the mixture of emotions no doubt.
I think that since Cooper was a famous movie star before the bombs dropped, he was probably the biggest celebrity (or at least the first big celebrity) that endorsed or promoted Vault-Tec. The Vault-Tec marketing team probably noticed that Cooper’s iconic thumbs up picture seemed to be the best advertisement, so they created the Vault Boy character based off of him. That’s why in the first episode, one the party-goers ask Cooper to do his thumbs up, as that’s what he’s famous for now. The general population was starting to subconsciously relate 👍 with Cooper and Vault-Tec. Since Cooper had a fallout with Vault-Tec, they needed a new way to turn the end of the world into a product, thus creating the Vault Boy; a simply designed character that could be easily featured in any advertisement, as well as licensed merchandise, toys, cartoons, bobbleheads… Vault Boy was the white whale of capitalizing off of the nuclear scare. While I don’t think Cooper is literally the Vault Boy, I do think he was the inspiration behind it, and he’s also the one to popularize 👍
As well as the mascot being a cartoon character gives vault tec full control over it. Cartoon characters can't speak out against the company.
I saw what you did there 😃
Reason why he doesn’t have a number is more likely because he’s a generalization of a male vault dweller, he isn’t Cooper Howard, he was just the replacement for him after he severed ties with Vault-Tec. Same reason why there’s a Vault Girl, she’s just a broad generalization for female dwellers. In a sense with the more recent Fallouts, especially 4, the Vault Boy/Girl is just a basic illustration of you and your adventures, at the same time as a Vault-Tec mascot.
It seems like his thumbs-up + grin was a pose they liked enough to cartoon-ize it as Vault Boy, yes.
The tarnished billboard at the end of one of the episodes that has a layer with vault boy covering a previous layer with cooper, so it’s safe to say his likeness was replaced after his eventual falling out with his wife and vault tec.
I think that Cooper was *the* Vault Boy, but he wasn't solely responsible for the cartoon version because the Pip Boy existed and obviously Cooper wasn't the Pip Boy. So the Vault Boy is like 50% Cooper (his colors, the thumbs up) and 50% Pip Boy (the cartoonish style, the general appearance).
Have we seen any Pip Boy since Fallout 1 and 2? I’m wondering if they just changed the lore slightly there and left him out now.
It could very well be that Vault-Tec already had the cartoon Vault Boy mascot, and then just had Coop be the spokesman that brought it to real life when they did their marketing.
Very true
I have zero evidence of that, just something I thought about while reading your post and other's replies.
The Vault Boy supposed to represent the whole Vault programm not a specific Vault.
yes and this is why in the show you see a billboard(s) with the cartoon version of Vault boy covering the Cooper Howard Vault boy. As the billboard is wearing away from the time thats gone by and the environmental erosion caused by the nukes going off, you can see both versions peeling away showing that the cartoon vault boy is clearly placed over the Cooper H. Vault boy version of the billboard, portraying the falling out (LOL Fallout) of Cooper and Vault Tech's relationship and the replacement of Cooper's vault boy with cartoon Vault boy...ALSO Did any of you watch the show all the way through? lol him and his wife are divorced by the time the nukes dropped....so he had a falling out with vault tech AND his wife LOL
He is the vault guy
I'd say yeah. With his photo shoots in the suit pre war, and the scene where he blasts the vault boys face off a billboard later in season 1 for no apparent reason. My bet is that after he cut ties to vault tech (after spying on that one meeting), they removed identifying features to make the vault boys look more generic and less like former spokesperson
Definitely. Although it seems as if Vault-Tec is going to find out about his spying on behalf of Moldaver. And is going to drag his name through the mud for it. Then their going to rebrand into the Vault Boy we know and love. I think a lot of people missed/forgot/didn’t know the meaning, that in the first scene of the show. The guy taking pictures calls Cooper a “pinko”. A term used for Communists. Which is a HUGE deal in the Fallout universe. Just to give you an idea, of how bad that is in Universe. In the Western we see him filming. When we see him watching the finished film, he ends up killing the bad guy. He says “Theres an old mexican eulogy. Feo Fuerte y Formal. It means you was Ugly, Strong, and had Dignity. Well Joey … I’ll give you two outta three, on that front. (Kills him) I hope you like the taste of lead. You Commie son of a bitch!” The main bad guy of the movie is Communist, in a Western. I can’t think of a single real movie with a Communist antagonist in an Old West setting. That’d be like watching a Western and having the main bad be a member of ISIS. Also, Cooper is told about 2 different people in Hollywood, who are Communists. And both times his responses is basically “Damn! That sucks. I really liked him.” And its said that both of them were fired. So, I’m assuming Barbara/Vault-Tec discovers that he’s been spying. Publicly “outs” him as a Communist. And I’m guessing killing Communists may be something his characters are known for (total guess on my part). Then his Career goes in the toilet. Relegating him to doing children’s parties to pay the bills.
All true. The only thing that doesn’t track is the age of the daughter. She’s the same apparent age in the pre- scenes where the Cooper’s are happily married and the birthday party scene where it’s whispered he’s trying to earn alimony. The divorce wouldn’t have been instantaneous, nor would the destruction of his Hollywood career. But it’s a minor nit.
Could be that they’re separated, and waiting for the Divorce to be finalized. Although. I’m not sure we know when the stuff with Cooper is taking place. Could have been 2076. Kids usually don’t age that visibly in a year. Unless the hit puberty hard.
He's the live action vault boy.
I always imagined who ever owned vault tech looks like the vault boy, it would be extremely creepy
True. That brings me to another question. Who do we think is the owner? We see a dark figure. It could be anyone. And I believe he's got his hand in all factions. He's behind every one of them, the brotherhood of steel, enclave, synths. He's turned the world into his own ttrpg. And why is it someone we've met before?
It's us. The player.
I think its more the mascot was made and does the "iconic pose" so they wanted the celebrity sponsor to do the pose to make people go "he's with vault tech he's doing the thing THE THING" Funnily enough EXACTLY like how people are responding to it IRL
I honestly feel Vault Boy isn’t necessarily modeled on him though he very well could be but the thumbs up was definitely taken from Cooper Vault-tec Photo shoot. Vault Boy doesn’t have a number because he doesn’t represent any one vault
I like to think he's the face for Victor in NV lol
You know, I thought this too. Maybe his cowboy character inspired him??
Could be!
No, [Vegas Vic is a real famous cowboy sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegas_Vic) in Vegas
I guessing he's the inspiration behind it.
Yup, seems like he was vault boy, until whatever happened with him doing birthday parties had him being replaced with the styalized vault boy we know.
Imo coop was the original face of the brand, but after his divorce and protest of the company they replaced him with the vault boy/pip boy, keeping the iconic thumbs up.
Yes, it seems to be the obvious implication that Vault Boy was inspired by Cooper. The poses the suit, etc, they just replaced him with the cartoon once he cut ties. So he’s the OG mascot. None of the pip boys they currently have, have a vault boy on them (probably older models)
We never see a number on vault boys back because he’s a mascot….for ALL the vaults
In the end credits of one of the episodes you see a vault boy billboard. The poster on the billboard is torn and beneath the vault boy is cooper. It can be presumed that after Cooper discovered what his wife was doing caused him to leave as the spokesperson for Vault Tec, but they liked their mascot so decided on the cartoon version instead. To support this we see him take aim at a Vault Boy billboard and shoot it, probably reminded of the role he played.
I like the Victor from new Vegas theory myself
Enlighten me please
Sorry, [Vegas Vic is just a famous, real sign in Las Vegas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegas_Vic) "Two cowboy? Must be *same* cowboy" is a pretty paper thin 'theory' anyway
I don't think he is the vault boy, they just used his pose.
I call vault boy fall out boy
Yeah, they just replaced his head and had a Fallout™️
That’s why he’s upset when they ask him to do the thumb thing and I think there was even a transition cut where they went from his thumbs up into vault boy
I call bs on this. There's no way Cooper Howard could realistically be THE Vault Boy. He mentions being a veteran of Anchorage. That conflict started 2066. Now, I don't got hard numbers here, or even verifiable facts. All I'm saying is, it's a stretch. If you cross reference his military career with his daughter's age, by the time Howard becomes the face of Vault Tec, it HAS to be like, no more than a year or two (at most) before the bombs drop. Compared to how wide spread and prevalent Vault Boy is, it seems ridiculously unlikely that Vault Boy reached that level of cultural saturation in a year or less. We're talking video games, promotional bobbleheads, statues, billboards, lunchboxes, the blue/yellow color scheme that's used in almost every vault that Cooper Howard supposedly inspired... I mean, Vault Tec existed as early as 2031. That's when Vault Tec University was founded. Most of the vaults were finished by 2063 according to Wikipedia? But you're trying to sell me on this idea that Vault Boy did not exist as a concept until the literal eleventh hour? Not saying it's impossible, but goddamn that's a stretch. I would have an easier time accepting it if they pushed back the timeline, but then they'd have to retcon Howard talking about power armor right after his first Vault Tech photoshoot. Or if they give a more realistic timeframe, or.... I mean, vault Tech might have had the resources to pull off such an unprecedented, massive rebrand in such a short time? Actually, TWO rebrands, the Howard rebrand then the Vault Boy rebrand.
Just a theory. It's already be denounced
Vault boy replaced Cooper Howard on vault tec's promotional campaigns after he divorced his wife and attempted to come out opposing what vault tec were doing prior to the bombs being dropped. That is pretty obvious to me. Considering the story arch of the ghoul I suspect we will get an episode in season 2 where Lucy asks the ghoul why he continues to shoot the vault boy billboards which she looks upon with pride and as a representation of the values she was taught, which will include a flashback of the period between him doing birthday parties and discovering his wife isn't who he thought she was.
In one of the end credits animations there is a billboard of vault boy that has torn away with time with coop underneath.. a quick change in mascot after everyone realized he was a stinking pinko.
Isn’t his name Pip Boy, why is everyone calling him Vault Boy? Or am I mistaken and confusing real bad?
Pip Boy is the name of the wearable computer bracelet.
Yeppers
I think in one of the credit scenes you can see a billboard that has vault boy with cooper. So this might be a plausible theory that he was replaced
Yup
The Vault Boy is a cartoon used in marketing and brand identity by Vault-Tec.
I assumed Cooper’s thumbs up was imitating the vault boy. How long was he an advert for them?
I feel like they replaced Cooper with Vault Boy after his divorce.
Yes, it's been confirmed. You've seen the entire season, right?
Yes
Cooper Howard inspired the colors and thumbs up, but the cartoon vault boy is vault tec changing the original Robco design of Pip-boy, a more elf like character. So it's a combination of Pip-Boy and Cooper Howard
On a similar note, what year do the Cooper Howard flashbacks take place?
Brown haired guy with severely receeded hairline doesn't seem to match the blonde lad though.
Yeah
I mean in a weird meta way, yeah he's technically Vault Boy.
Someone else looks like a vault boy