Goede tijden, slechte tijden is currently the longest-running Dutch soap opera. It started airing in 1990 on RTL 4 and was the first daily soap produced in the Netherlands. The show is produced by Joop van den Ende and so far on the order of 3500 episodes have been broadcast. The story revolves around a group of families in the fictional town of Meerdijk. It is based on , an Australian soap opera. / The success in the Netherlands led German station RTL to develop its own version, called , with the same title just in German language. By now, the German and Dutch versions differ sharply from each other in tone and narrative, however. Also, unlike the Dutch version, the German version does not go into season breaks during summer. / A lot of Dutch actors and actresses became famous after joining the cast of the soap. The people who became the most famous celebrities after joining the show are Katja Schuurman, Reinout Oerlemans, Angela Schijf, Antonie Kamerling and Georgina Verbaan.