Hoo Hah

About

Hoo Hah is the name given to an infamous combo used by the character Diddy Kong in the fighting game Super Smash Bros. for 3DS & Wii U. The combo was well known in the Smash community for its ease of use and extreme effectiveness.

Origin

The term hoo hah comes from the noises made by Diddy Kong, a monkey, as he performs the combo, which consisted of a doawnward throw and an upward aerial attack.^[1] The term did not come to true popularity until January of 2015, when the Smash Bros.-centered YouTube channel GRsmash uploaded a video of the professional Smash player Hungrybox quitting in the middle of a professional fight where, after repeatedly falling for the combo, would get heckled by Smash player StaticManny, who shouted the term from the audience. This video gained over 250,000 views.

Spread

As Hungrybox’s sudden quit rose in popularity, so did the combo. The video was posted to the subreddit /r/smashbros on January 18, where it gained over 600 upvotes and over 600 comments.^[2] On January 25, professional Smash player Omni uploaded a video explaining the technique’s origin and the community’s reaction, which gained over 50,000 views. On March 8, YouTuber AlpharadTV uploaded a compilation of Hoo Hah combos featuring an edited version of the theme song to the Donkey Kong Country animated series, which gained over 66,000 views. The term appears more than 450 times on SmashBoards, the largest Smash Bros. discussion forum, though this number may be too low an estimation as the board’s search function cuts off results at April 2015, months after the term first rose in popularity.^[3]

Death of the Hoo Hah

In April 2015, both versions of Super Smash Bros. 4 were patched to accommodate for several new features, such as the character Mewtwo; alongside this, most characters received changes to balance the game out.^[4] Diddy suffered heavily from these changes, with the Hoo Hah being noticeably nerfed. Fans noted this with jokes about the “death” of the Hoo Hah.