The continuing de-hipification of Dooku
Where did this “hella” prefix come from? I hear people saying this all the time now. I feel so old and out of touch, and I’m in my early thirties. 
Examples:
“I am hella-psyched for that concert!”
“That movie was hella-crappy!”
“Dooku, you are so hella-lame.”
If anyone could point me towards the source, (comedian? movie?), I would hellappreciate it. (See, I can’t even do it right).
This is a West-Coastism as far as I know. My WAG is that it is a contraction of “hell of a.” As in, “that’s a hell of a big ant hill.” It then got adjectivized and shortenned to “hella.”
Probably I shouldn’t be trying to respond to this, because it’s not likely to be the final answer, but I first encountered the term in South Park. It apears to be a favorite ejaculation of Eric Cartman.
Just to elaborate on the west coast thing, I’m pretty sure it originated in Northern California, particularly, San Francisco and the surrounding cities. And, generally, in Southern California (where I am), they hate the word.
In fact, what is often the case, when someone says “hella” in their conversation while in So Cal, the So Cal person will ask the person saying hella, “are you from the Bay Area by any chance?”
'Course, I just say it to piss everyone off. 
Didn’t Mr. T say things like “My van is helluva fast?”
I first heard it around 1994, a friend of mine had moved to Seattle and when she came back to visit everything was hella this or hella that.
Also, in Sublime’s 1996 self-titled album (probably written/recorded in '95 or earlier) he sings the line “it’s a hellafied way to start your day,” I don’t know if that word is related or not.
This doesnt really answer the op totally, but heres a snippet, and the link.
http://www.language-culture.org/colloquia/symposia/bucholtz-mary/
It is evident from these examples that teenagers of all backgrounds use hella.15 But the term is a marker of more than age or generation; it also signals an orientation to coolness, as indicated by its co-occurrence with other linguistic markers of youth culture, such as innovative spellings (2getha [together], 3a) and slang (keyed, 3c; tite [tight], 3d). Hella is a very stable regional marker, apparently having been in use in the Bay Area as an age-graded term for at least the past twenty years, although to my knowledge it has not been documented in the scholarly literature. Despite its longtime use, until very recently the term had not moved far from its locus of origin in the Bay Area, with only isolated use outside of this region. At the time of the study, hella was largely restricted to Northern California, especially the Bay Area; it currently enjoys a much wider circulation, thanks to its occasional use in popular music, television shows, and films aimed at a youth audience. It has been anecdotally reported to be in circulation around the country, but outside California it appears to be a marked, trendy term, in contrast to its enduring use as an unmarked feature of Northern California youth speech.16 Within the region it has spread dramatically across social groups: from its probable origins among African American speakers, it has come to be used by young people with different identities who share the youth-cultural value of coolness.
Well, I do live in San Francisco - it didn’t occur to me it was a local thing. But, it just started happening. I swear, two years ago I didn’t hear anyone in SF saying “hella” all the time - now I can’t escape it…
I’ve heard it from teens in Nor Cal for about 6 years.
I’m happy to say I had never heard this term before. It’s bad enough hearing “not for nothing” out here…
hella adv. [1980s+] (US campus) very, extremely, really.
From: Cassell’s Dictionary Of Slang.
I used to say that when I was in middle school,I don’t know where it came from
I grew up in the Bay Area, and it is a little strange to see people asking about it now that, I guess, it’s spreading. It was very common at least 10-15 years ago, when I was using it more often than I do now. It wasn’t until college that I was aware that people from SoCal & other parts hated it.
And though I think World Eater’s link explains this as well, the word itself comes from “hell of”, not that that clarifies it any better.
‘Heck’ is also interchangeable with ‘hell’ in the word/phrase for most people, and not just by those who don’t want to say ‘hell’. But I do know people who think that saying, “That’s heck of tight!” is hella lame.
“Hella” is the NorCal way of saying “wicked”. 
Jeez, man, this has been asked before. Didn’t you try searching back to 1999? =)
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=8622
Which, I should note, seems peculiar to Boston and perhaps other parts of New England.
As far as I know, New Yawkahs say neither “hella” nor “wicked.”
My search timed out. I even spelled it right.
OK, sounds like it has been used in SF since before I moved here (in 1992). I’m still not sure why I never noticed it until the last couple years or so, especially since I was 22 in 1992, you’d think everyone I knew would have been using it back then.
Unless that means my friends and I have been…
…unhip for almost the last ten years!!!
::openly weeps::
I can’t believe that people are asking about “hella” at the end of the year 2001!
I remember “hella” being very popular slang about when I was in middle school, sometime around 1994 or 1995. Even when the South Park episode featuring it appeared, it’s usage had long died out. I don’t think I’ve heard it used (other than in this thread) for at least a couple years.
I also didn’t know it was mostly a west-coast thing, but it makes sense. Reno is just over the mountains from NorCal.
My boyfriend says it all the time and he is from North Carolina.
However, i didn’t meet him until after South Park came out so maybe he picked it up from there.
I can’t believe it’s just a california thing. that’s kind of weird to think of language like that. I never was shocked by hearing it here in Ohio, I just thought it always existed.
Right, and as I then said in my contribution to that thread, “That’s hecka, not hella.”