Convert jquery response to json

scrape.py

import requests
import json

def convert_to_json(url):
    # get the response
    r = requests.get(url)
    # get the content of the response and decode from bytes to str in UTF-8
    response = r.content.decode()
    # the response is a jquery object, so we need to strip off the extra jquery nonsense.
    # the beginning of the json object is the '[' so...
    while not response.startswith('['):
        # while the first character isn't a [, remove it
        response = response[1:]
    # now remove the final parenthesis
    response = response[:-1]

    return json.loads(response)