diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/filter/core.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/filter/core.py
index d5e1a12e531..40ffb23fa48 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/filter/core.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/filter/core.py
@@ -100,9 +100,11 @@ def to_nice_json(a, *args, **kw):
             else:
                 if major >= 2:
                     return simplejson.dumps(a, indent=4, sort_keys=True, *args, **kw)
+    try:
+        return json.dumps(a, indent=4, sort_keys=True, cls=AnsibleJSONEncoder, *args, **kw)
+    except:
         # Fallback to the to_json filter
         return to_json(a, *args, **kw)
-    return json.dumps(a, indent=4, sort_keys=True, cls=AnsibleJSONEncoder, *args, **kw)
 
 def bool(a):
     ''' return a bool for the arg '''
diff --git a/test/integration/roles/test_template/tasks/main.yml b/test/integration/roles/test_template/tasks/main.yml
index a35b93d9d92..9fd1d860e00 100644
--- a/test/integration/roles/test_template/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/test/integration/roles/test_template/tasks/main.yml
@@ -48,11 +48,6 @@
 
 - name: copy known good into place
   copy: src=foo.txt dest={{output_dir}}/foo.txt
-  when: pyver.stdout != '2.6'
-
-- name: copy known good into place
-  copy: src=foo-py26.txt dest={{output_dir}}/foo.txt
-  when: pyver.stdout == '2.6'
 
 - name: compare templated file to known good
   shell: diff {{output_dir}}/foo.templated {{output_dir}}/foo.txt