AWARD OF CAUTION
Director SPIKE LEE, whose controversial film, Do the Right Thing, recently garnered him the Chicago Film Critics award for best picture and best director, is displeased at not getting Oscar nominations for those same categories. "We were disappointed about the Academy, but you know, they're old, "says Lee of the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. "After a day of yelling obscenities and throwing bottles, I was okay, "says Lee, 33, whose next him, due this summer, is titled Mo' Better Blues. Lee says he has not gotten around yet to seeing the other race relations him that attracted nine Academy Award nominations, Driving Miss Daisy, a major hit at the box office. "Let's just say it has taken me a long, long, long time to get to the theater. I suppose Americans want to be nostalgic, remembering a time when black men knew their place. That saddened me."

IT'S SNOOZE TO HER
Now that PAULA ZAHN has moved from ABC's World News This Morning and Good Morning America, which started at 6 A.M., to co-anchor of CBS This Morning, starting at 7 A.M., she rests assured. "I've gained an extra hour of sleep," says Zahn, 34. "It's thrilling. I used to get up at 3:15 A.M. Now my three alarm clocks go off at 4:30. It's the first time my husband [real estate developer RICHARD COHEN] and I have been up as late as 9:30 or 10 on a weeknight in three years." Has daughter Haley, 9 months, noticed the change? "Absolutely," says Zahn. "She's had to adapt to a new theme. She loved the GMA music, but now she's rocking to CBS."

DEFECT-IVE PART
After portraying Angie Hubbard on ABC's All My Children for eight years, DEBBI MORGAN, has left to join NBC's newest soap, Generations. Morgan, a co-winner of the Emmy award for best daytime supporting actress last year, says she left because she felt Generations is more receptive to black actors and story lines than AMC and because NBC sweetened its offer with the promise of a part in a made-for-TV movie. "I'm sure no one on All My Children would ever get an offer like that, with the exception of Susan Lucci," says Morgan, referring to AMC's biggest star, who has played the vixenish Erica Kane for 20 years. "Why are there no black Ericas? No black sex symbol that is a rich bitch? Generations takes the stand that we [African Americans] fit in the middle as well as on opposite ends and that just like whites we too can be flawed and manipulative. That's something other soaps have always shied away from."

THE MAJOR BUZZ
Things rarely get hairy on the set of Major Dad. "The Major [GERALD MCRANEY] got another haircut today, so his short-short hair is even shorter than usual," says co-star SHANNA REED. The actress portrays the liberal journalist wife of McRaney's by-the-book Marine officer on the CBS situation comedy. "I told him I liked it, so that must mean I am finally getting used to his stubble. The thing about his maintaining that military look is that he needs to have his hair cut more often than I have to shave my legs!"

LEAVING NO DOUBT
For years Soviet Communist Party spokesman VLADIMIR POZNER, 55, was familiar to American viewers of Nightline, Donahue and similar shows for his unflinching support of Soviet policy. He now says, however, that had he continued living in the Soviet Union without the recent benefits of glasnost, his unhappiness would have ultimately compelled him to flee his country. "I would never have defected," says Pozner, whose new book is aptly titled Parting ions. "I would have applied officially to leave the country. Ultimately, I would have seen that I could not say what I wanted. I would have found myself in a very oppressive society. Ultimately, I would have revolted and not accepted living there. I think the only reason to leave a country is not because it's greener on the other side, but rather because you can't stand it any longer. I think that's what would have happened to me and a lot of other people."