TELEVISION

Wednesday, December 4 CBS PLAYHOUSE (CBS, 9:30-11 p.m.*). "Saturday Adoption." A new drama, by Ron Cowen (Summertree), about a white college student who becomes a volunteer tutor to a grade school Negro. Directed by Delbert Mann.

Thursday, December 5

THE SECRET OF MICHELANGELO: EVERY MAN'S DREAM (ABC, 9:50-10:30 p.m.). Christopher Plummer and Zoe Caldwell narrate a documentary on Michelangelo's Sistine Chanel frescoes. Produced and directed by Milton Fruchtman.

Friday, December 6

G.E. FANTASY HOUR (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Animated musical special about the most famous reindeer of all. Burl Ives sings and narrates.

Saturday, December 7 N.C.A.A. FOOTBALL (ABC, 11:45 a.m.3 p.m.). Syracuse v. Penn State at University Park, Pa.

Sunday, December 8

A.F.L. DOUBLEHEADER (NBC, 1:30 p.m. to conclusion). Cincinnati Bengals v. New York Jets at New York. Second game: Kansas City Chiefs v. San Diego Chargers at San Diego.

N.F.L. FOOTBALL (CBS, 3:30 p.m. to conclusion). Chicago Bears v. Los Angeles Rams at Los Angeles.

HALLMARK HALL OF FAME (NBC, 7-8:30 p.m.). "Pinocchio." TV adaptation of the children's story, starring Peter Noone as Pinocchio and Burl Ives as Gepetto.

Monday, December 9

T.C.B. (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). The initials stand for "Taking Care of Business." For Diana Ross and The Supremes, that means singing such hits as Stop in the Name of Love and You Keep Me Hanging On.

SAGA OF WESTERN MAN (ABC, 9-10 p.m.). "The Road to Gettysburg." Kevin McCarthy and David Carradine narrate this Civil War account of two soldiers, a Yank and a Rebel--from their induction to the Battle of Gettysburg.

Tuesday, December 10

A GUIDE TO THE SWINGING BACHELOR (ABC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). A satiric look at the dreamworld of the single male. Joey Bishop is host with Guests Shelley Berman, Noel Harrison, Larry Storch, Dean Jones and 12 Playboy magazine Playmates.

Check local listings for dates and times of these NET programs:

NET FESTIVAL. "The Film Generation." First of eight programs examining the personal vision of independent film makers. Includes excerpts from Don Pennebaker's film about Folksinger Bob Dylan, Don't Look Back, and George Lukas' THX-1138-4EB, a frightening indictment of the computer age.

NET JOURNAL. "The Drinking American."

A wide-ranging, often surprisingly comic report on social drinking in America, its causes and effects.

THEATER

On Broadway

ZORBA. Producer-Director Hal Prince has turned out a non-Jewish version of Fiddler on the Roof. But this time Herschel Bernardi merely inhabits the hero's role rather than being possessed by it, and Maria Karnilova never quite provides the mixture of girlish coquetry and faded carnality that the role of Bouboulina requires. The music sounds as if it is being piped in by Muzak, the lyrics are insipid, the dances are any old folk.

THE APA REPERTORY COMPANY races through Moliere's The Misanthrope with a light touch and airy style but gets bogged down by the heavily symbolic psychological poetry of T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party.

A CRY OF PLAYERS. Anne and Will of Stratford-on-Avon have a very bad marriage. She nags; he drinks, wenches and poaches. Out of this dubious material, the genius of Western dramatic literature emerges--though one would never know how from William Gibson's meandering fustian. Anne Bancroft does not help with her Bronx-housewife intonations, but Frank Langella speaks a convincing pseudo-Elizabethan line and conveys the anguish of a young man torn between his responsibilities and his art.

THE GREAT WHITE HOPE. James Earl Jones exudes enormous vitality as the tragic hero of Howard Sackler's play, which is based on the triumphs and trials of Jack Johnson, the first Negro heavyweight champion. The drama has the scope of a minor saga, but Edwin Sherin has directed it as if it were a stampede; all decibels and no deftness.

KING LEAR. In the finest performance of his career, Lee J. Cobb plays an almost unplayable role with consummate skill, infusing his portrayal of Shakespeare's king with an all-involving humanity. Cobb's Lear lacks something of the necessary majesty but is totally convincing in the sad scenes of madness. Director Gerald Freedman elicits beautifully modulated acting from the Lincoln Center Repertory Company. Philip Bosco as Kent stands out in a supporting cast that truly supports.

Off Broadway

TEA PARTY and THE BASEMENT. In any Pinter play, the denouement is total uncertainty. The audience knows less in the end than it thought it knew at the beginning. Even though these two one-acters are lesser Pinter, the playgoer is still held in the author's subtle grip. In Tea Party, a successful manufacturer of bathroom hardware is driven into a catatonic state by the interactions of his wife, her brother and his secretary. The Basement presents two men and a girl in a power struggle that leaves the meaning of the outcome to the mind of the beholder.

CINEMA

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Stanley Kubrick charts the history and future of man in this dazzling voyage through the cosmos of imagination.

YELLOW SUBMARINE. The Beatles are the nominal heroes of this fey animated film about a trip to Pepperland aboard a yellow submarine. Viewers, however, may well find themselves paying more attention to the visual puns and graphic artistry of Animator Heinz Edelmann.

PRETTY POISON is a little comedy of murders full of some nice surprises: notably excellent performances by Tony Perkins and Tuesday Weld and some hard-edged satire on the current climate of violence by young Director Noel Black (31) and Co-Producer Marshal Backlar (32).

COOGAN'S BLUFF. Director Don Siegal, a favorite of French cinema fans, proves that his reputation is no Gallic caprice. This is a tough crime film about an Arizona sheriff (Clint Eastwood) who goes to New York to extradite a prisoner.

BULLITT. Steve McQueen plays it fast and supercool as a San Francisco cop in this modish, violent thriller about current life styles in the underworld.

FUNNY GIRL. A loud, brassy and almost anachronistic musical biography of Fanny Brice. Barbra Streisand plays the lead in a typically brazen manner that will please her confirmed fans but hardly win her new ones.

BOOKS

Picture Books

For Children at Christmas

A BIRTHDAY FOR FRANCES, by Russell and Lillian Hoban (Harper & Row; $2.95). The mischievous song-singing little badger, Frances, is back with a new adventure, this time exhibiting all the natural childhood jealousies as preparations are made for her sister's birthday party. After a great deal of soul searching, Frances gives her sister a present, a much squeezed "Chompo Bar."

A KISS FOR LITTLE BEAR, by Else Holmelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak (Harper & Row; $2.50). Here is one more delightful "Little Bear" story; although the tale is a little weak, Sendak's drawings are excellent.

A LETTER TO AMY, by Ezra Jack Keats (Harper & Row; $3.95). The creator of The Snowy Day and Peter's Chair has written another book about Peter, his young black hero. The drawings of New York City on a rainy day are superb; the story is charming and realistic.

OH LORD, I WISH I WAS A BUZZARD, by Polly Greenberg (Macmillan; $4.50). This matter-of-fact rendering of a day in the cotton fields is somewhat removed from the modern child's experiences. The illustrations in brown and orange by Aliki catch the polka-dot bleakness of the Southern landscape at cotton-picking time.

ALFIE FINDS "THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD," by Charles Keeping (Watts; $3.95). From England comes one of the most beautifully illustrated books of the season--a simple story of a young cockney lad's adventure crossing the Thames by ferry on a foggy London afternoon. The paintings are brightly colored but muted by a haze that evokes the London atmosphere and a small boy's bewilderment.

THE WITCHES' SECRET, by Frances Charlotte Allen, illustrated by Laura Jean Allen (Harper & Row; $3.50), turns the traditional scare story upside down. Here, three lovable broom ladies, after promising the mayor not to play any more pranks, cast one final happy spell.

IF I OWNED A CANDY FACTORY, illustrated by The New Yorker Cartoonist James Stevenson and written by his eight-year-old son James Walker Stevenson (Little,

Brown; $3.95), shows young Stevenson giving each of his friends birthday presents of their favorite candy--a mountain of red lollipops, a carload of gumdrops, "a very long string of delicious licorice."

WONDERS, INC., by Crawford Kilian, illustrated by John Larrecq (Parnassus; $4.25), is a whimsical story about a marvelous factory that makes lines (skylines, hairlines, sidelines), mistakes (from colossal blunders to tiny errors), time (part-time, pastime, split seconds, fleeting moments) and space (from outer to closet).

THE ALPHABET TREE, by Leo Lionni (Pantheon; $3.95), is tops on the list of picture books that teach as well as amuse. The letters, coached by a word bug and a purple caterpillar, cling to the tree and to one another to say "something important--peace."

FISHES, by Brian Wildsmith (Watts; $4.95), presents a selection of collective nouns (a battery of barracuda, a glide of flying fish) with marvelous paintings.

ONE IS FOR THE SUN, by Lenore and Erik Blegvad (Harcourt, Brace & World; $3.50), is a counting book that includes notions like "three million is for fish" and "ten million is for stars."

WHY FROGS ARE WET, by Judy Hawes with illustrations by Don Madden (Crowell; $3.50), is an excellent science book--a simple straightforward account of the life and history of the frog.

THE TALKING CROCODILE (Atheneum; $4.95) is an amusing story by Feodor Dostoevsky about a man who was swallowed by a crocodile. It was adapted for children by M. Rudolph Campbell and illustrated with bold drawings by his daughter, Judy Piussi-Campbell.

CHINESE MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES, edited by Robert Wyndham with pictures by Ed Young (World; $3.95), is designed to be read vertically like a Chinese scroll.

THE LUCK CHILD (Atheneum; $4.50) is a Grimms fairy tale adapted and illustrated by Gaynor Chapman.

THE SCROOBIOUS PIP (Harper & Row; $3.95) is a welcome new edition of an Edward Lear nonsense poem (completed by Ogden Nash) about a creature who is part beast, part bird, part insect and part fish. The illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert are beautifully detailed.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. A Small Town in Germany, le Carre (1 last week)

2. Preserve and Protect, Drury (2)

3. The Salzburg Connection, Maclnnes (3)

4. The Hurricane Years, Hawley (4)

5. Airport, Hailey (5)

6. The Senator, Pearson (9)

7. The First Circle, Solzhenitsyn (6)

8. Testimony of Two Men, Caldwell (7)

9. Savage Sleep, Brand

10. True Grit, Portis

NONFICTION

1. The Money Game, 'Adam Smith' (1)

2. Anti-Memoirs, Malraux (3)

3. Sixty Years on the Firing Line, Krock (2)

4. Lonesome Cities, McKuen (4)

5. The Rich and the Super-Rich, Lundberg (6)

6. 1897 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue

7. The American Challenge, Servan-Schreiber (10)

8. On Reflection, Hayes

9. Between Parent and Child, Ginott

10. Iberia, Michener

* All times E.S.T.

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