TELEVISION
Wednesday, March 3 1 ABC SCOPE (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.).*"Thorn of Plenty," a report on the hard life of California's migrant farm workers and the crucial labor shortage faced by fruit and vegetable growers.
Friday, April 2
THE GREAT ADVENTURE (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). A Civil War drama about Union officers who plot to escape from Virginia's notorious Libby Prison, with Jack Warden and Fritz Weaver.
FDR (ABC, 9:30-10 p.m.). "Distant Thunder" documents Europe's deepening crisis in the '30s: Munich, the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia, Italy's march into Albania, and, finally, Hitler's invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II.
Saturday, April 3
ABC's WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). Highlights of the Sebring Grand Prix of Endurance from Florida and the Holmenkollen International Ski Jumping Championships from Oslo.
TOP CAT (NBC, 9-9:30 p.m.). A new animated cartoon series about a gregarious alley cat. Première.
SECRET AGENT (CBS, 9-10 p.m.). This new series is imported from England, where it is one of the top ten, stars Patrick McGoohan as a British special agent. Première.
Sunday, April 4
THE AMERICAN SPORTSMAN (ABC, 4-5 p.m.). Hunting elephants in Kenya, deep-sea fishing off Panama, salmon fishing in northern Quebec, with Actor-Sportsman Robert Stack and others.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.X "Man with a Violin: Isaac Stern."
WORLD WAR I (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). The Allies intervene in the Russian Revolution.
PROFILES IN COURAGE (NBC, 6:30-7:30 p.m.). President Grover Cleveland's opposition to benefits for Civil War veterans.
THE GENERAL (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). An informal portrait of Douglas Mac-Arthur, narrated by Van Heflin.
THE SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE (ABC, 9-11 p.m.). War Hunt, an offbeat film about valor and insanity in the Korean War, with Robert Redford and John Saxon.
Monday, April 5
THE 37TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS (ABC, 10 p.m. to conclusion). Rex Harrison? Julie Andrews? Anthony Quinn?
Tuesday, April 6
NBC WHITE PAPER: TERROR IN THE STREETS (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). A study of criminal violence in the U.S., with Chet Huntley.
THEATER
THE ODD COUPLE, by Neil Simon. Walter Matthau and Art Carney, two middle-aged newly de-weds, share living quarters and watch their friendship go on the rocks for precisely the same reasons that their marriages did. The play, on the other hand, is convulsively successful, thanks largely to deft construction by Playwright Simon (Barefoot in the Park) and daft direction by Mike Nichols.
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF strays a world away from Broadway to capture the happiness and the hurt, the folkish airs and graces of a small Jewish community in a Russian town in 1905. Zero Mostel, an intuitive and masterly recorder of the mind's merriment and the soul's grief, gives this musical an unfaltering heartbeat. A male wedding dance with empty wine bottles perched in men's hats is a tingling high spot.
THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT, in the persons of a bookstore clerk (Alan Alda) and a prostitute (Diana Sands), hoot and screech at each other until they discover that they have something uncommonly common in common.