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Over Superbowl weekend, traditionally that time of the year when America's dads and sons come together to bond over potato skins and one of their few shared interests, the turbulent relationship between Ryan O'Neal and troubled offspring Griffin O'Neal reached all new lows. Early Saturday morning, shortly after Ryan returned to his Malibu home from a "Happy 60th Birthday/Ridding Yourself of Cancer" party for his ex-wife Farrah Fawcett, a visit paid by Griffin turned violent, resulting in the elder O'Neal being arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and negligent discharge of a firearm. Ryan has since told the LAT that he wouldn't have had to fire the gun in the vicinity of his son and son's pregnant girlfriend if Griffin hadn't decided to let a swinging fireplace poker do his talking for him:

O'Neal said Griffin, who was visiting, picked up a fireplace poker and started swinging it. Griffin grazed him four or five times and "aimed at my head, I ducked, he hit his own girlfriend in the head," O'Neal said.

"She's seven months pregnant," he said. "I got a little nervous at that point and fled to my room ... and I got my gun."

His son "started to come up the stairs again with the poker in his hand. So I just fired it into the banister, and that scared him and he fled," said O'Neal, describing his actions as self-defense.

While this wouldn't be the first time the two hot-tempered relatives butted heads (the LAT reminds us of the time in 1983 when O'Neal knocked out two of his son's teeth), hopefully the events of this past weekend will be the wake-up call that finally forces father and son put their differences behind them. It's serious business now, but in time, this incident could turn into a humorous family legend, with Griffin, running his child's tiny index finger along the perforated handrail, explaining, "This is where the bullet went when grandpa tried to kill daddy, and you were still inside mommie's tummy!"