Overriding Minicart.phtml template breaks minicart dropdown content (shows blank/empty)

[RedAtRareCandy]

Preconditions

1. Magento 2.1.6 via latest Magento DevBox Beta

Steps to reproduce

1. Install Magento DevBox Beta
2. Add minicart.phtml template to your theme in Magento_Checkout/templates/cart/minicart.html (this can be the original code from app/code/Magento/Checkout/view/frontend/templates/cart/minicart.phtml and it should still break the minicart dropdown).
3. Flush cache and also run bin/magento setup:upgrade
4. Reload homepage and click the cart icon.

Expected result

1. The cart should display "Your cart is empty" message. Or the items in your cart.

Actual result

1. Dropdown is empty. Illustrated in the following:
   https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/24561107/22732111/fd10552c-ee12-11e6-8cbd-c0deb8592aa5.png

Noticed that the minicart.phtml JavaScript throws errors as if it's not able to reference the right files...

[RedAtRareCandy]

I've noticed that in the Magento code for app/code/Magento/Checkout/view/frontend/templates/cart/minicart.phtml that Ln44 seems to be the problem.

Ln44 is:
window.checkout = <?php /* @escapeNotVerified */ echo $block->getSerializedConfig(); ?>;

Updating that to the below works and fixes the issue, but why??
window.checkout = <?php /* @escapeNotVerified */ echo \Zend_Json::encode($block->getConfig()); ?>;

Note: I do not know if the above work-around opens the application up to error/issues (functionality, security, or otherwise).

Can anybody explain why it works though?
I do not understand why the original code from the original minicart.phtml file does not work?

[magento-engcom-team]

@RedAtRareCandy this is not a bug.
For 2.1.x versions method getSerializedConfig() does not exist in \Magento\Checkout\Block\Cart\Sidebar.
This method was introduced since 2.2.0 version.
If you have Magento 2.1.x, You should use method \Zend_Json::encode($block->getConfig())

[magento-engcom-team]

@RedAtRareCandy, thank you for your report.
This seems to be correct Magento behavior. Please refer to the Community Forums or the Magento Stack Exchange site for advice or general discussion about this.
Otherwise you may submit Pull Request with the suggested changes.

[RedAtRareCandy]

Thanks! Makes sense, glad to know where I was going wrong!