Not sure this will work without audio, but here goes:

What is the origin of the use of the word "Hello" when it's meant to 
imply, "Are you an IDIOT?  Or are you out of your MIND?"  It's a
specific TONE of voice that I'm sure everybody recognizes.  Maybe it's
Valley Girl-speak, but it seems more recent than the Moon Unit Zappa
days.  You hear it everywhere.  e.g.,  You ask someone a question and
you get the slightly exasperated reply:  "Hell-OHHHHHHH! a k a  "Duh!
Isn't isn't it obvious?"
Where the heck did this start?  And, how do you even punctuate it --
assuming you'd want to type it in a script.

---

Clarification of Question by cryptica-ga on 21 Mar 2003 08:00 PST

Tutuzdad --
Since you're right, we may never get the "definitive" answer, I'll
vote for yours.  SNL has certainly launched many a catch-phrase. 
Plus, you've done a lot of work on this query.  So post in the answer
section and let's close this baby out.  And thanks to everyone else
for their input, too.

Dear cryptica-ga; 
 
Thank you for selecting my research as the most likley origin for the
phrase. This has been a lot of fun for all of us.

I can now trace the use of the term “hello” as a means of pointing out
one’s apparent ignorance, back even father than the 1985 movie BACK TO
THE FUTURE, which I posted earlier.
 
In 1977, when Bill Murray joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, he
became a part of a recurring skit as a nerdy high school kid named
Todd de la Muca. "Todd", in pursuit of his love interest (Gilda
Radner’s hard-to-look-at and equally nerdy character) Lisa Loobner,
frequently flirted in very obnoxious immature ways. In almost every
skit, when Lisa would say something goofy or Todd simply wanted to
have physical contact with her, he’d place her in a headlock and knock
on her head with his nuckles. He called these "love taps" “noogies”
and he’d often shout “"Hell-OHHHHHHH!” into the top of her head while
he was doing it.
 
Remember that? As you know, SNL was responsible establishing a lot of
fads among young an entire generation (or more) of young people – and
many of them remain popular, or at least readily recognizable, to this
day ("Ex-cuuuse Me!", "Land-shark!", "Ham-boogie", "Happy feet", and
many of more from the "Wayne's World" and "Church Lady" skits just to
name a few).
 
I seriously doubt anyone can place an actual verifiable instance of
the use of this word for these specific purposes farther back than
this early example.
 
Regards; 
Tutuzdad-ga

You doggedly pursued this one and get 5 stars for that alone.  Thanks
to everyone else. I'm sorry to say "Goodbye" to "Hello."

I agree that this is probably more recent than the Valspeak era of
Moon Unit Zappa.

I associate it with the same Generation Y kids who say "Well, duh!"
and (in a bored and uninterested voice) "Whatever."

The first time I can recall hearing this pronunciation of "hello" was
in the 1995 movie "Clueless," when the airheaded Dionne says to her
friend "Hello? There was a stop sign back there."

It was also a significant line of the character "Biff" in BACK TO THE
FUTURE (1985 - and later sequals '89 & '90). He'd bang on the top of
McFly's head and ask "Hel-lo? McFly?"

Remember that one?

tutuzdad-ga

By golly, tutuzdad is right. That's a whole decade earlier than "Clueless."

Maybe it does go back to Valley Girl days.

We used to say "Hel -LOH ? Anybody home?" - in the sense of "Did you
think before you spoke?" in at least the sixties (England).

I see this as an artifact of the telephone era.  One says "Hello" in
an expectant yet frustrated manner to test for presence at the other
end of a phone line.  The sarcasm implied in the usage at issue here
is that one "sees" a physical person before them yet "doubts" their
(mental) presence.

regards, mathtalk

All good coments. When we answer the phone "hello" we are starting a
new conversation. Perhaps the new kind of hello sometimes signifies
"let's erase what we just said and start analyzing this topic from the
beginning"  Neil

Maybe we'll never be able to pinpoint it.  A friend just reminded me
of
the old TV series, "MR. ED" (anyone here old enough to remember that
one?),
where Mr. Ed, the horse, would say, "HELL-oh!"  Accent on the HELL. 
And then maybe this isn't truly American in origin.  Maybe exasperated
French people say, "BonJOURRRR!"

It is, I'm pretty sure, as people have said. By saying the word in
that context, you are asking if anybody is home upstairs, if any
vaguely sensible thoughts might be knocking around up there.

Over here in Australia we use exactly the same tone, sarcasm and drawn
out pronounciation as questioner has showed with emphasis on the last
syllable, just the same as in USA apparently. Most people here would
take it to mean exactly as Dogsof... has said, that is "Is their any
sign of life in that brain of yours and can it be raised somehow if I
speak directly to it".  As far as I can remember I first heard it
around the mid-nineties.

I think it was Adrienne Barbeau's character in "Escape from New York."
 However, if Mr. Ed said it, that would probably predate EfNY.  I
think Adrienne Barbeau was also the voice of Mr. Ed, if I'm not
mistaken. <snort>

Ah, but Mr. Ed said HELL-oh, as opposed to the Hell--OHHHHH that I'm
looking for. How did Adrienne Barbeau say it?  "Escape from New York"
was released in 1981, the first "Back to the Future" (Tutuzdad-ga's
entry) was 1985.  It's kinda hard to believe "Escape from New York"
launched it, though -- how many people SAW that movie? Not that
Adrienne Barbeau isn't a major draw, of course.

The New Oxford Dictionary Of English reminds us that the British use
the work “hello” as an expression of surprise (as in, “Hello, what's
all this then?”). It indicates that the origin is from the late 19th
century variant of the earlier word “hollo” (related to HOLLA).

Here we are offered a different meaning of the word (may be true,
maybe not):
http://www.youyim.com/uboard/unityboard/Question.asp?GID=29
H = How are you?
E = Everything all right?
L = Like to hear from you
L = Love to see you soon
O = Oh, and don't forget to write...

Oddly enough, the word “Hello” has a different meaning in China (not
the Chinese version of the word, but the English version):
http://web.mit.edu/mit-ceti/www/intranet/teams/1999/chengdu/news-7.10.html
“…the word "Hello" is to advertise to a foreigner whatever one has to
sell and to assure the foreigner that he or she is dealing with a
professional. One can hear for example: "Hello T-shirt!" which
translates into "Hey you, the strange looking, I have some T-shirts to
sell and my language skills are sufficient for us to bargain!". "Hello
certificates!" "Hello water!" all work the same way.”

Here is another nuance listed on the same page, but it is not
exclusive to China as we have all experienced. The term, “Hello”,
among strangers is a polite generic name when a name suddenly becomes
necessary but is not known. If you saw someone drop his wallet for
example, you might say, “Hello! Sir?”, in order to gain his attention
– or you might just quietly cover it with your foot and wait for him
to walk off, depending on your integrity, of course, but that’s
another matter:

“"Hello" is also a universal name for foreigners. You can hear (and
see, as most of the communication is non verbal) "Hello" in contexts
like "Come here, Hello, and have a picture taken with us. No, it is
not a problem, Hello, that we do not know one another: we still want a
picture with you, Hello!"

As for the word “hello” itself, well, it DID begin with the telephone,
but the telephone did not begin with IT. You see, in the 1870’s
Alexander Graham Bell (born in Scotland) had visions of beginning each
telephone call with the greeting “A-hoy” (a more modern and accepted
version of the Gealic, “Hoy, hoy!”) but people couldn’t get down with
that so didn’t last long. Because many phone lines of the time were
always open, one needed to say something to see if anyone else was in
fact listening. Eventually, the word “Hello?” became the simple
question on asked in order to inquire whether another was hearing your
voice. It was long believed that Edison himself coined the word we use
today. This was confirmed in the 1980s, when a scholar named Allen
Koenigsberg discovered a letter from Edison to Mr. T.B.A. David,
President of Pittsburgh's Central District and Printing Telegraph
Company dated August 15, 1877. In it, Edison included the first known
written use of the word "hello." This is believed to have come from
the phrase “Halloo” which was used as a call by ferryboat captains. It
may be (my speculation) that Edison used this word in error, thinking
mistakenly perhaps, that this was Bell’s practice since the two
phrases do have nautical origins.

Interestingly, about the same time, the “Hello badge” was invented.
(You know, the convention name tag that boldly says “Hello! My Name is
Bob”?). Ad it happens, this fancy little item first appeared on the
lapels of people attending a convention at Niagra Falls. Guess what
kind of convention it was…drum roll please…that’s right, “The Niagara
Falls, Telephone Operators Convention, September 1880.”
TODAY IN TECHNOLOGY
http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/aug15.htm

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
http://www.cs.uh.edu/~klong/papers/hello.txt

Regards;
Tutuzdad-ga

nah, cryptica, I was just kidding with ya.  there were several
todayism phrases in that movie though.  if I recall rightly "ya
think?" was in there during the battle on the bridge scene, uttered
(uddered?) by Ms. Barbeau.  music was decent in that film though, eh? 
and it has quite the cult following.  hope someone is able to track
down your answer.

Dear cryptica-ga:

After much looking I finally found the portion of the script to the
movie, BACK TO THE FUTURE. These were the actual lines spoken by the
character "Biff" to the character "George McFly" in the movie as early
as 1985 with regard to this specific usage of the word "hello" as you
mentioned:

"Biff: Hey McFly, what do you think you're doing. 

Marty: Biff. 

Biff: Hey I'm talking to you, McFly, you Irish bug. 

George: Oh hey, Biff, hey, guys, how are you doing? 

Biff: Yeah, you got my homework finished, McFly? 

George: Uh, well, actually, I figured since it wasn't due till Monday-

Biff: Hello, hello, anybody home? Think, McFly, think. I gotta have
time to recopy it. Do you realize what would happen if I hand in my
homework in your handwriting? I'd get kicked out of school. You
wouldn't want that to happen would you, would you?"


Back To The Future - Transcript
Produced by Bob Gale & Neil Canton 
Screenplay by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale 
Directed by Robert Zemeckis 
Transcribed by ESD;SISRF
http://www.angelfire.com/de/esd/Back2Fut.html

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Badabing, I know you was funnin' me.  Just don't let Adrienne Barbeau
see this.
And Tutuzdad, you certainly are on the verge of collecting the
research fee. . .but i hate to close this down quite yet, since there
still seems to be some dialogue going on on this topic.

The scene in "Back to the Future" quoted by tutuzdad is set in the
1950s. That leads to speculation that this usage of "hello" may date
to that era (or at least that screenwriters Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gale
thought it did.)

Obviously "hel-LOOO" has a lengthy history. I'm baffled that I can't
recall hearing it until the '90s. I guess sometimes it takes a long
time for slang to reach an old lady in Oklahoma. ;-)

Dear cryptica-ga;

I can now trace the use of the term “hello” as a means of pointing out
one’s apparent ignorance, back even father than the 1985 movie BACK TO
THE FUTURE, which I posted earlier.

In 1977, when Bill Murray joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, he
became a part of a recurring skit as a nerdy high school kid named
Todd de la Muca. "Todd", in pursuit of his love interest (Gilda
Radner’s hard-to-look-at and equally nerdy character) Lisa Loobner,
frequently flirted in very obnoxious immature ways. In almost every
skit, when Lisa would say something goofy or Todd simply wanted to
have physical contact with her, he’d place her in a headlock and knock
on her head with his nuckles. He called these "love taps" “noogies”
and he’d often shout “"Hell-OHHHHHHH!” into the top of her head while
he was doing it.

Remember that? As you know, SNL was responsible establishing a lot of
fads among young an entire generation (or more) of young people – and
many of them remain popular, or at least readily recognizable, to this
day ("Ex-cuuuse Me!", "Land-shark!", "Ham-boogie", "Happy feet", and
many of more from the "Wayne's World" and "Church Lady" skits just to
name a few).

I seriously doubt anyone can place an actual verifiable instance of
the use of this word for these specific purposes farther back than
this early example.

Regards;
Tutuzdad-ga