TELEVISION

Wednesday, December 11 DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS (NBC, 10-11 p.m.).- Burgess Meredith narrates this special about man against the sea. It includes wind-whipped scenes of a schooner rounding Cape Horn, the voyage of the replica of the Mayflower, and two Englishmen's crossing of the North Atlantic in a 20-ft. rowboat.

Saturday, December 14 LIBERTY BOWL (ABC, 12 noon to 3:15 p.m.) Mississippi v. V.P.I, at Memphis.

WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). Nino Benvenuti v. Don Fullmer in a 15-round World Middleweight Championship fight, live from San Remo, Italy.

Sunday, December 15

THE ETERNAL LIGHT (NBC, 12 noon-1 p.m.). In the first segment of a program observing the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, Metropolitan Opera Soprano Roberta Peters talks with music critics and Commentator Martin Bookspan about her travels in Israel. Part II, entitled "Habima 50," tells the story of the 50-year-old Israeli National Theater.

A.F.L DOUBLEHEADER (NBC, 1:30 p.m. to conclusion). New York Jets v. Miami Dolphins at Miami, followed by Oakland Raiders v. San Diego Chargers at San Diego.

THEATER

On Broadway

THE GREAT WHITE HOPE. James Earl Jones, as Jack Johnson, the first Negro heavyweight champion, roars through the role with jungle magnetism and the pride of a lion. Otherwise the semidocumentary succeeds only in easing the conscience without facing the tragedy of its story.

KING LEAR. The consummate skill of Lee J. Cobb has elevated Lear's pain into a kinship of the spirit. The play is by far the best work the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater has ever offered. It is distinguished by a supporting cast that truly supports, and is a tribute to the artistry of Director Gerald Freedman.

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.

MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT. A work billed as one play by three authors, Israel Horovitz, Terrence McNally and Leonard Melfi, is merely an umbrella covering three disparate statements. The play, like fanners, is best in the "morning."

Off Broadway

HUUI, HUUI by Anne Burr is no shining example of the playwright's art. But Producer-Director Joseph Papp of New York's Shakespeare Festival manages to make it bright enough to provide an evening of unusual interest. Barry Primus plays an eccentric loner with a father fixation, who utters "Huui, Huui" in moments of distress. Two women, charmed by his innocence, try to change him, but he eludes them only to meet final disillusionment.

SWEET EROS and WITNESS. Nudity is the theatrical vogue at the moment, and in the first of these two one-acters. Playwright Terrence McNally has his psychopathic hero strip Sally Kirkland to the buff and keep her that way. The second and better play is a caustic, comic look at a U.S. where feelings of impotence and venomous frustration translate themselves into the assassination of Presidents.

RECORDS

Music to Trim the Tree By

Holiday albums are as traditional in style as Christmas trees themselves. The baubles may vary from year to year, but underneath is the same old evergreen. The performers who do the decorating rarely change either. Whether listeners' tastes favor Buck Owens or Mahalia Jackson, Perry Como or the Philadelphia Orchestra, this year as always, they are sure to find an album by their favorite.

One variation on this pattern being tested by a few record companies is the sampler album. SOUL CHRISTMAS (Atco) presents pulsating, sometimes profane celebrations of the season by the late Otis Redding, Joe Tex, Solomon Burke and kindred swingers; some listeners may feel that a groovy Jingle Bells by Booker T. & the MGs is worth all the strained gimmickry of the other selections.

THE BEST OF CHRISTMAS (Capitol) is a two-disk set that brings together such diverse pop staples as Bing Crosby, Glen Campbell and the Hollywood Bowl Symphony. Nat King Cole's classic version of Christmas Song and Marlene Dietrich's gloriously campy Little Drummer Boy (in German) both are as richly seasoned as they are seasonal. On the whole, both albums are for listeners who want variety at all costs--since the cost in musical unevenness is high. More successful are three albums that balance standardized material with fresh, cohesive treatments:

SWINGLE: SINGERS: CHRISTMASTIME (Philips). Leader-Arranger Ward Swingle's wordless vocal octet deck 25 traditional tunes with sprung rhythms, piquant harmonies, a. melodic lines that sound like a collaboration of Monteverdi and Miles Davis. The group's interpretations are sometimes more intriguing than the themes themselves, as in Silent Night or We Three Kings. Still, their singing can be appropriately straightforward; Lo, How A Rose Ere Blooming is a harmonic roundup that ends up back in the old chorale.

RITA FORD'S MUSIC BOXES: THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS (Columbia) is not only a sonic treat for stereo buffs but also a revelation for listeners who think of music boxes merely as gewgaws for the coffee table. These 19th century music boxes, all owned by the Manhattan Collector and Dealer Rita Ford, are ornate contraptions, and the arrangements they play are surprisingly complete.

DELLER CONSORT: FROM HEAVEN ABOVE (Victrola). On one side of this delightful release, the ensemble headed by Countertenor Alfred Deller lends its finely shaded phrasing and crystalline texture to songs like There Is No Rose and The Coventry Carol. Interspersed are other old carols, in spare, sprightly settings by Composer Carl Orff, for girls' choir, strings, recorders and percussion. The second side contains four baroque Christmas compositions including Buxtehude's lilting In Dulci Jubilo, which is more familiar, but hardly more pleasing, in various settings by Bach.

CINEMA

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

THE FIREMEN'S BALL. Director Milos Forman (Loves of a Blonde) has fashioned a sharp parody-fable from this slight and funny anecdote about a group of Czech firemen who stage a ball to honor their retiring chief.

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

PRETTY POISON is a little comedy of murders that is full of some nice surprises: notably excellent performances by Tony Perkins and Tuesday Weld, and some telling satire on the current climate of violence by Director Noel Black, 31, and Co-Producer Marshall Backlar, 32.

COOGAN'S BLUFF. Director Don Siegal, hymned in the pages of esoteric French film magazines, proves that his reputation is no Gallic caprice with this 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 detective in this modish thriller about current life styles in the criminal 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.

WEEKEND. Jean-Luc Godard excoriates the bourgeoisie in this savage satire, which would be sharper if its Maoist political harangues were not so dull.

BOOKS

For Children at Christmas Ages Eight to Twelve

THE DREAM WATCHER by Barbara Wersba (Atheneum, $3.95). Albert is a misfit--he reads Thoreau, enjoys gardening, and is always worried about his "crummy soul." As a mini-Holden Caulfield he is as real as he can be.

LANGSTON HUGHES by Milton Meltzer (Crowell, $4.50) is a good, straightforward biography of the late Negro poet, who saw, felt, understood and wrote about what it was like to be black in America

COUNT ME GONE by Annabel and Edgar Johnson (Simon & Schuster, $3.95). An 18-year-old boy attempts to discover himself by rehashing four wild days that led to an automobile crash.

THE DONKEY RUSTLERS by Gerald Durrell (Viking, $4.50). A gifted writer turns his attention to a book exclusively for children. It is a marvelous spoof of village conservatism confronting the "Communist menace."

THE CHILDREN OF THE HOUSE by Brian Fairfax-Lucy and Philippa Pearce (Lippincott, $3.95) concerns four lonely children growing up in aristocratic poverty in England before World War I. It is quietly moving to watch them finding happiness of sorts among themselves and with their only allies, the servants.

WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT by Vadim Frolov; translated by Joseph Barnes (Doubleday, $3.95). A Russian adolescent with the universal problems of youth--girls, school, drink and parents--struggles against narrow-minded, evasive adults in this more-adult-than-usual young peoples' novels.

MISTER CORBETT'S GHOST by Leon Garfield (Pantheon, $3.50) is a weird story about spirits in a London apothecary shop, with chilling illustrations by Alan E. Cober.

EDGAR ALLAN by John Neufeld (S. G. Phillips, $3.95) a white family in a California town adopts a black child, then returns him to the adoption agency because the white father--a minister--finds he cannot stand the pressure and hatred that his act of charity has caused.

THE HOUSE OF DIES DREAR by Virginia Hamilton (Macmillan, $4.95). An old house, once a station on the Underground Railroad, provides new and exciting mysteries for a modern Negro boy and his family. As he discovers its secrets and dangers, the boy realizes his own link with the Negro past.

THE OWL SERVICE by Alan Garner (Walck, $4). A fey story involves a Welsh legend and three adventurous teen-agers in a mystery-fantasy of jealousy and revenge.

JOURNEY FROM PEPPERMINT STREET by Meindert DeJong (Harper & Row, $4.50) is a slight, touching account of a small Dutch boy's first trip away from his village in the early 1900s. Although the journey is only as far as his great-aunt's house, the road is beset by dangers and delights, and even a few "miracles."

ME, CASSIE by Anita MacRae Feagles (Dial, $3.95). One of the numerous "with it" books this season to deal with "how I overcame my problems and became just me." This model works better than most.

THE STONE-FACED BOY by Paula Fox (Bradbury Press, $3.95). A moody, sensitive portrait of a withdrawn and lonely boy.

LUCY by Catherine Storr (Prentice-Hall, $3.95). Lucy wanted to be a boy--or at least to be included in the neighborhood boys' game of detective. How she proves her worth in a real adventure makes fast-paced and funny reading.

Best Sellers

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

2. The Salzburg Connection, Maclnnes (3)

3. Preserve and Protect, Drury (2)

4. The Hurricane Years, Hawley (4)

5. Airport, Hailey (5)

6. Savage Sleep, Brand (9)

7. The Senator, Pearson (6)

8. Testimony of Two Men, Caldwell (8)

9. The First Circle, Solzhenitsyn (7) 10. Couples, Updike

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

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

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

4. Anti-Memoirs, Malraux (2)

5. The Day Kennedy was Shot, Bishop

6. Instant Replay, Kramer

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

8. The Beatles, Davies

9. Lonesome Cities, McKuen (4) 10. On Reflection, Hayes (8)

* A11 times E.S.T.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.